


The Bear Creek Market

by timetogoslumming



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/F, M/M, autumn vibes, crush confusion, farmers market AU, will update tags as Stuff happens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2020-10-18 11:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20638343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timetogoslumming/pseuds/timetogoslumming
Summary: When Sarah can't run her table at the local farmer's market, her brothers step up.Big autumn vibes.





	1. Welcome to Bear Creek

The town of Bear Creek was small, nestled in the lap of several North Carolina mountains. It was the kind of town where a person only needed to drive twenty minutes to get to a larger city, but they could also pretend to be completely isolated. Stars were visible. Frogs, cicadas, and crickets fought to be the loudest presence in the night. Kids could ride all over town on bikes without worrying about getting abducted. 

For most of the year, the town was quiet. Around autumn, though, the town came alive, flooded with tourists coming from the foothills or flat areas. They came to see the leaves, which turned warm, vivid shades for a few weeks of the year. The cabin rental industry thrived in fall. Local farms grew apples and pumpkins to sell to people who were used to buying produce from Walmarts or Food Lions and wanted the freshness of “apples from the mountains”. “Let’s go up to the mountains and get apples.” “We don’t get apples from the grocery store, we just go up to the mountains.”

Local businesses thrived. Two farmers markets had been created and set up every Saturday morning on opposing sides of town, bringing in locals and tourists. It was at one of these farmers markets, known simply as the Bear Creek Market, that a table sat empty one Saturday in early September. The occupant of Table 5 was usually early, and Jack Kelly watched it with mild interest from his seat at Table 6. Landscape paintings and prints featuring local scenery and buildings surrounded Jack, propped up on easels or carefully packaged in plastic. 

Table 5 was usually loaded down with pottery– mugs, bowls, candle holders, vases. It was beautiful work, finished with a signature green or blue glaze. Jack shrugged and went back to the book in his lap, where he was working on a gouache painting of a sunset over the mountains. His sunset work sold like mad, and it was easy. Slap a silhouette of a mountain or a tree in front of a warm-toned gradient and you were good to go.

“Hey, try this.” Jack looked up from his work. Crutchie had rolled his wheelchair over to the side of Jack’s table and was holding out a small paper cup. 

Jack took the cup and knocked it back like a shot. He tried to maintain a straight, supportive face for his friend. “It’s, uh… new recipe?”

Crutchie nodded. “Yeah. You hate it, too?”

“Yeah, I really do. What the hell  _ is  _ that?”

“I thought I’d try to make pumpkin spice lemonade.”

Jack stared incredulously. “Dude, what were you  _ thinking _ ?”

“I’m gonna figure it out,” Crutchie vowed. “Before Thanksgiving.” He nodded at Table 5. “Where’s Sarah?”

“I don’t know. She’s not usually late.” An alarm on Jack’s phone went off, and he silenced it quickly. “Eight o’clock. You better get going.”

The gate to the farmers market opened and customers started to stream in. It wasn’t usually busy this early in the morning. Most of the visitors were locals finishing their early morning runs or bike rides and stopping by on their way home. There was a dangerous-sounding clattering by the side gate where vendors entered and Jack looked over to see a man about his age and a young teenage boy maneuvering a hand truck full of boxes through the gate. The man, who was pushing, directed the teenager, who was doing his best to steer. When they were past the gate, the rest was easy. They guided the hand truck in Jack’s direction.

“Okay, get that tablecloth out,” the man said as he passed the teenager a backpack in front of Table 5. 

“Uh, hi,” Jack said from his table about four feet away. 

The man looked sharply at Jack. He looked flustered, and his dark hair was pushed up on one side. “Hi,” he replied. It was short, brusque, and clearly said  _ I’m saying hi to be polite, but I really don’t feel like talking to you _ . He turned back to the table, where the younger boy had unfolded a table cloth. They started stacking pottery, which Jack immediately recognized. 

“Are you Sarah’s brothers?” 

“Yeah,” the younger boy said. “I’m Les. That’s Davey.” Les was a little bit on the chubby side and judging by his acne and voice, was currently working on the whole puberty thing. He had a wide, friendly smile. 

“Let me help you,” Jack said, standing from the table. “I’m Jack.” He started taking mugs out of a box. Davey looked like he wanted to stop Jack, but let him carry on. “Where’s Sarah?”

“She was in a car accident on Wednesday,” Davey replied. 

“Shit! Is she okay?”

“Relatively so. But she broke her leg pretty badly and cracked a few ribs, so she’s stuck at home for a while.”

“It might need surgery,” Les said. 

“Yeah,” Davey continued. “So we’re filling in until she can come back to work.”

Jack put a few more mugs onto the table. “Well, I hope she gets better soon.” He flashed Davey a bright smile. “Not that I mind  _ you _ being here.”

The smile didn’t win Davey over. “Yeah,” he said stiffly. “Anyway, thanks. Looks like you have a customer.” 

Jack turned around and saw a man there, flipping through a photo album of prints that were for sale. “Hey! I’ve got most of those in multiple sizes, so just let me know what you’re into. Are you shopping for yourself, or for a gift?”

“A gift,” the man said. 

“Let me guess. Girlfriend?”

“No. Not a girlfriend.”

“Wife?” The man shook his head with a slight laugh. “Boyfriend, then?” When the man said no again, Jack did his best to look incredulous. “Come on. Good looking guy like you, you must have a girlfriend, at least!”

“Oh, I do,” the man said. “I was shopping for a gift for my mom, though.”

“Gotcha.” Jack took the album away and flipped to a page near the back. It was a field of wildflowers atop a mountain ridge. “I know this is pretty popular among the momtherly types.”

“Yeah… I think she’d like that one. Do you have it like… this big?” He held up his hands, illustrating the rough size that he wanted. 

Jack flipped through a large accordion folder and pulled out a medium-size print, wrapped in a clear plastic envelope. “You sure you don’t want to get anything for your girlfriend while you’re here?” he asked, flipping slowly through the book like he didn’t know exactly what page he needed. He stopped flipping on a print of a vase of sunflowers, which Jack originally painted in homage to van Gogh. 

“Oh, wait,” the man said. “She would really like that one.”

“You think?” Jack asked in mock surprise. 

“Yeah. She loves sunflowers.”

Jack made the sale and waited until the man was well out of earshot before he turned to Davey. “The trick is, you’ve gotta flirt with the men, too.”

Davey looked up in surprise from a stack of papers in his lap. “What?”

“For making sales. The women expect to be flirted with and they hate it. The guys never do, and they’re into it.”

“Okay, great.” Davey turned back to the stack of papers in his lap. 

“Also,” Jack continued. “All girls like sunflowers.”

Davey sighed and put the papers, along with a red pen, on the table next to the cash box. “What are you even talking about?”

“I sold that guy a sunflower print for his girlfriend. All girls like sunflowers. They’re really in right now.”

“I kind of think you’re generalizing pretty widely,” Davey said. 

“It’s true, though.” 

“Just as a heads up, when you say stuff like that, you sound like a huge douche.”

Jack’s cheeks tinted slightly. “Hey, I mean, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Okay, great.” Davey went back to the stack of papers. 

Someone approached Table 5 and without looking up from his work, Davey said, “Let me know if you need anything.” Les sat next to him, playing something on a Nintendo Switch. The customer half-heartedly picked up a mug, glanced at the price sticker on the bottom, and walked away without another word. 

“Have you  _ never _ sold anything in your life?” Jack asked. “What was that?”

“I told her to let me know if she needs something.”

“Oh, my  _ god _ .”

  
  


Davey was not meant for the customer service lifestyle. He knew that. He knew there was a reason why none of his students considered him a favorite. He never had kids hanging out in his classroom before or after school, and he liked it that way. Teachers that get friendly with students are teachers who get in trouble and end up on the news. Davey had worked very hard for his entire life to  _ avoid _ getting on the news. It was why he continued to grade papers in red ink, even after his colleagues switched to blue or purple to make the grading seem less harsh. It was why there was not a single motivational poster or bad, outdated meme on his classroom walls.

He had managed to get through twenty-five years of life without ever having to work retail. He did a brief stint as a server at a Ruby Tuesday’s, but that only lasted two weeks. He barely made it out of training. 

Sarah really only wanted Les to help her out with sales while she was on bed rest. She was halfway through a Bachelor in Paradise marathon but was probably still going through budget spreadsheets and planning new work from bed. Les had a sort of innate charm that Davey had never managed to achieve. But every table at the farmers market had to have an adult manning it, so Davey had to come. 

“Can I go walk around?” Les asked after they had been there for about an hour. The batteries on his Switch had just died and he was getting fidgety. 

“What?” Davey replied. “No, you’re here to work.” 

“Just like, fifteen minutes?”

“No.”

“Ten?”

Davey sighed. “If you can make a sale, you can go.”

Les straightened himself up. “Fine.” He stood up next to the table. When a couple of older women approached the table, he put on his brightest smile. “Hi! Were you interested in some pottery?”

“We’re just looking, thanks,” one of the women replied. 

“Oh, that’s fine!” Les waited until one of them picked up one of the mugs. “Please, be careful with that one.” The woman holding it looked up in surprise. “My dad and I made it together. It’s one of the last ones that we got to make before he got deployed.” Behind the table, Davey stared resolutely at the papers in his lap. 

“Your dad is in the military?” 

“Yeah, he’s been in Afghanistan for about three years. I really miss him, but at least I have pottery to remember him by. He was a really great potter.” 

“Did you make all of these?” one of the women asked. 

Les shook his head. “No, a lot of these were made by my dad or my sister. My sister’s on a mission trip to El Salvador right now. I’m saving up so I can go next year.” Davey had to bite his lip. 

Les closed the sale. He managed to sell two mugs and a cereal bowl. He passed the cash over to Davey, grinning. “You are such a little shit,” Davey said. 

“Is all that true?” Jack asked from his table, where he had been eavesdropping. 

“Not a bit,” Davey replied. He passed Les ten dollars. “Fifteen minutes.”

Les hurried off toward a food truck. “No dad in Afghanistan?” Jack pressed. 

“I’m pretty sure he’s at a tailgate for the App State game today.”

“That kid’s a natural salesman.”

“More like a natural liar.” 

Jack shrugged. “What’s the difference?”


	2. The Trials and Tribulations of Vape World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing the vendors of Bear Creek Market!  
Kath chases a story and the Delancey's can't keep their opinions to themselves.

Setting up at the Bear Creek Market every week was always a bit of a gamble for Race. He knew that it would only be a matter of time before he was chased out of the market. The naysayers who had been trying to get him kicked out for the past two years would win someday. 

Good thing Race loved to gamble. 

Every week, he came back and set up his table. A tacky banner hung from the front of the table with a slightly pixelated logo reading “Vape World” surrounded by clouds. He set up flavored vape cartridges, CBD products, and in the corner of the table, a couple of small candles. Working the farmer’s market wasn’t Race’s idea. The manager of Vape World– the actual manager– told him he had to do it. Of course, that was before the manager took off. A week-long trip to Denver turned into a never-ending trip. Race, the assistant manager, was left to run the place with minimal guidance from Geoff. 

He could have left ages ago. He could have let the shop fall apart. It wouldn’t be his problem. He was being driven through business by pure stubbornness. The only reason he hadn’t given in and left the farmers market was out of sheer pig-headedness. Most of his business these days was in CBD products, anyway. They fit the vibe of the market better, they were trendy, and they weren’t maybe-possibly-potentially giving teenagers lung disease. He had CBD candy, lotions, dog treats, and of course, vape cartridges. 

Around ten o’clock, a pair of brothers approached the table. Race rolled his eyes. “What do you want, Delancey?”

Oscar slid a piece of paper across the table. It was an article from USA Today with the headline  _ A 6th person has died from a vaping-related lung illness, this time in Kansas _ . “Have you seen this?” Oscar asked. 

“Everyone’s seen it,” Race replied tiredly. He picked up the paper and studied it. “Is this a  _ picture _ of the article on a computer? Did you take a picture of your computer screen and then print it out? Neither of you are old enough to be this technologically stupid.”

“It’s going to be one of your customers next,” Morris said. 

Race began folding the paper into a small rectangle. “That’s pretty statistically unlikely.”

Morris carried on, ignoring Race. “Mr. Pulitzer is going to kick you out any time now. He’s not going to have a murderer in his farmers market.” 

“A  _ murderer _ ?” Race laughed. “Holy shit, ya’ll are dumb. Pulitzer’s not kicking me out as long as I’m paying vendor fees.” Morris looked like he was about to argue, but Race cut him off. “May I recommend some CBD vape oil? It’ll really chill you out. Could be helpful for you!” 

Across the way, Albert was half watching the scene play out at Race’s table while he placed squares of fudge into a gift box. The Delancey brothers in their khakis and neatly pressed polo shirts stormed off after Race offered them a free sample. Race glanced over at Albert and winked. 

He had recently been upgraded to one of the bigger booths, which had power sources for keeping food hot or cold. It had allowed him to really up his game, and the shop was starting to become really successful. It was so busy that he even hired someone to help– a kid from the high school named Smalls. Smalls did most of the math and money handling while Albert focused on taking orders. 

The shop had started as a glorified bake sale. Albert, who had always enjoyed baking, made a bunch of cookies and brownies and set up at the market. He started adding other sweets like fancy Rice Krispy treats, chocolate covered pretzels, macarons and, most recently, fried Oreos. Someone was selling a portable deep fryer on the Facebook Marketplace and this weekend was something of a fried Oreo experiment. He had already gotten a few orders for them, and he had already burned himself on oil popping out of the fryer several times. The Oreos seemed to be popular, though, and he was already thinking of what else could be fried. He heard once of deep fried butter at the state fair and was determined to give it a shot.

“Hey, Smalls,” Albert said. “Take some money from the box and go get a bag of apples. I want to see if I can fry them.”

Smalls followed the long corridor lined with tabled until she got to the farm tables. Where the upper market was mostly prepared foods and artists, the lower market was all actual farmers. At the booth for Lost Shoe Orchards, Specs was sitting tipped back on two chair legs, reading a book. “What’s up, Smalls?” he asked. His eyes, magnified by the thick glasses he wore, peeked over the top of the book. 

“I need apples. What’s good?”

With a thud, Specs let the legs of his chair fall back to the ground. “Golden Delicious or Fuji.” He pointed to a table to his left where paper bags and baskets were filled with fresh apples. “We just picked those yesterday afternoon.”

Smalls took a second glance at the cover of the book Specs was reading. Two shirtless, sweaty men wrapped themselves in a deep embrace. The title, written in an elegant script, said  _ Light My Fire _ . “Reading gay erotica at the farmers market?” 

Specs shrugged. “I wanted to see how people react. So far, nothing. It’s a really bad book. This one,” he said, pointing at the man on the left, who had bright red hair. “Is a phoenix. Like, he turns into a bird and then he dies and then he comes back as a baby bird and then he rises up again as a hot man.”

“Yeah, I’m not old enough to talk to you about this,” Smalls said. She passed him a few bills to pay for the apples. 

Kath parsed her way through the crowd, stopping visitors periodically to ask a few questions about how they were enjoying the farmers market. When she was given the fairgrounds beat (if you could even call it a beat), she didn’t really expect to be covering only the farmers market. There were only so many times that a person could report on the food truck schedule or quality of local eggs. 

She stopped by the Vape World table on her way down the aisle. “How’s it going today?” she asked. 

“Are you asking as the reporter or as my friend?” Race replied. 

“Always both.”

“The Delanceys are still on my case about vaping being a killer.” 

Kath rolled her eyes. “Whatever. They’re just sad losers with nothing else to do.” 

“They don’t know how to take a screenshot, Kath.” He took the folded square of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it, showing Kath the picture. 

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “How  _ old _ are they?” 

“Thirty? If that?” 

“That’s what I thought!” They laughed together and Kath picked up one of the candles on the table, sniffing it. “What’s up with the candles?” 

“I stole a few from Spot,” Race admitted. “I figure if I get run out of business, I’ll need to find  _ something _ to sell.” 

“How’s that going, by the way?” 

“I just told you, the Delanceys are on my case.” 

Kath shook her head. “No, I mean with Spot.” 

“Oh,” Race said, immediately shutting down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Kathy P!” someone yelled from down the row. Kath turned and saw Jack down at the end of the row, waving her over. 

“How’s  _ that _ going?” Race asked. 

Kath flushed slightly and ran a hand through her hair, making sure that everything was in place. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, mimicking Race. “I’ll just go see what he wants.” She turned away from Race’s smirk and walked toward Jack. She was suddenly hyper-aware of how she was walking. Did she look normal? Did she have a weird walk? Was she going too fast? Too slow? While she was trying to correct her gait, which she had decided was akin to a lumbering ogre, she bumped into someone walking the opposite direction. “Oh, sorry,” she said quickly. She glanced toward Jack to see if he saw, but he was concentrating on something behind the table– probably a painting. 

“Hi, Jack,” she said. 

“Hey,” he said, smiling his wide, easy smile that she loved.  _ Snap out of it _ , she mentally told herself. “Got a story for ya.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kath took her notebook out of the crossbody bag that she wore at her side. “Hit me.”

Jack pointed a thumb at Davey and Les. The day was nearly half over and while they definitely hadn’t sold as much as Sarah usually would, they were doing pretty well. The credit went entirely to Les, whose natural charisma drew customers in. “These guys are taking over Sarah’s table for… how long?” 

“A few weeks, maybe longer, depending on whether or not she needs surgery,” Davey replied. 

“Yeah. Sarah was in a wreck and got hurt.”

Kath furrowed her brow, pen poised over the notebook, but she wasn’t writing anything. “No offense, but that’s not really a story.” 

“You could make it some human interest thing about family or whatever. Maybe you could go interview Sarah about it.” Jack raised his eyebrows like there was some double entendre in what he said that Kath should be picking up on. She wasn’t getting it. 

“Yeah, I mean… maybe.” 

“Also, Crutchie’s trying to make pumpkin spice lemonade.” 

“Yikes.” She sighed. “Tragically, I think that’s probably going to be my best bet for this week. I’ll keep Sarah in mind if I can’t find anything good for next week. I should go talk to Crutchie.” She scribbled something in her notebook and tore the page out, passing it to Jack. It was a quick doodle of an apple with a smiley face. Jack grinned and pocketed the doodle. 

When Kath left, Jack turned to Davey. “Kath’s got a crush on Sarah,” he said. 

“Oh, really?” Davey asked. His interest was piqued, and it showed. 

“Yeah. I’m trying to play matchmaker. Sarah  _ is _ gay, right? Like, I didn’t read the pink striped flag on her backpack and general vibe wrong, right?”

“Definitely gay,” Davey said resolutely. “Kath’s pretty cute. Good luck with that.”

“Yeah. She hasn’t  _ told _ me that she likes Sarah, but you know. We’ve known each other for a long time. I can tell.”


	3. Stir Fry at the Reserve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey finds himself alone on a Saturday night.

When the farmers market closed and the last customers were ushered out, Davey and Les started packing up, carefully wrapping and stacking the pottery so that nothing would break. At the table next to them, Jack slid prints into large accordion folders and disassembled the easels that he used to prop artwork up. “See you next week?” he asked Davey as he slung the straps of the folders over one shoulder. 

“Probably. I doubt Sarah will be up for it within a week.” 

“Alright. Tell her I said to get better soon.” 

Davey and Les loaded the boxes into the trunk of Davey’s Subaru and made the short drive to their parents’ house. Sarah rented her own place but was staying with their parents while she was laid up. They found her on the couch, where she was molding a lump of clay while an episode of some TV court show played in the background. “How’s it going?” Davey asked after he and Les finished unloading the boxes. 

“I miss cable.” Their parents only had network television, and the signal on even that was shaky. If someone stood in the wrong part of the room or a gust of wind blowed the wrong way, they would lose signal. “How were sales?” Davey handed her the cash box, along with a list of everything they sold. Sarah studied it for a moment. “This is lower than my usual, but not bad. I’m impressed!”

“It was all me,” Les said. “Davey just did school stuff the whole time.” 

“I would expect nothing else.” Sarah counted a few bills out of the box and handed them over to Les, who pocketed them eagerly. “Thanks, bud.” 

“Nothing for me?” Davey asked. 

“The warm feeling of knowing that you’ve helped your dear sister,” Sarah said. “I’m kidding, I already Venmoed you some money.” 

“Thanks.” Davey watched the TV for a minute, shaking his head when the defendant started yelling about a stolen pair of shoes. “Yeah, I’m going home. Do you need anything before I go?”

“Nope.” 

There was only one apartment complex in Bear Creek. It was built in the early 2000’s, and the older contingent of the population protested it viciously. Even fifteen years after the complex was built, people were still calling for it to be torn down to “bring back the small town feel”. The Reserve at Bear Creek had just over one hundred units, many of which were taken up by the town’s younger population. 

Davey unlocked the door of his two bedroom unit on the third floor. “Honey, I’m home,” he said tiredly, dropping his keys on a small table next to the door. The table was cluttered with junk mail, coupons, a single Tootsie Roll Pop, and a flyer for a parent teacher night. 

His roommate, Spot, was in the kitchen chopping an onion. It was a deal of theirs. Spot always chopped the onions. He was somehow able to do it without shedding a tear, and it always left Davey half-sobbing onto the cutting board. “How was the market?” Spot asked. 

“Long,” Davey replied. 

“Welcome to my life.” Spot worked for his aunt, who had a candle company. The apartment he shared with Davey always smelled either amazing or overwhelmingly terrible, always tinted with whatever Spot had been working on. Today, the apartment smelled like onion and pumpkin. Every Saturday, Spot loaded up and sold at the other farmers market in town. Every Saturday, he came home complaining about how much he hated talking to people and how he was just going to get a job laying tile. 

“What’re you making?” 

“I don’t know. Stir fry.” In apartment 313, “stir fry” just meant “I have no idea what to make so I’m throwing a bunch of stuff in the wok we impulse bought last year”. “Hey,” Spot said as he scraped the chopped onion into a pile on the cutting board. “Want to go out tonight? I think a few people were going to go to Asheville.” 

Davey wrinkled his nose. “That’s so far.” 

“Yeah, but it’s that or we go hang out with the heteros at the Lodge.” 

“I don’t think I really feel like going out yet.” 

Spot glanced up at his roommate, concern evident on his face. “You’re going to have to go out eventually. You can’t stay inside forever.”

“Ben and I _ just _ broke up.”

“It’s been two months.”

“Yeah,” Davey said. “_ Only _ two months. Besides, I really need to do laundry.” 

Spot shook his head. “Alright, suit yourself. Have fun spending your twenties doing chores and grading homework.”

“Can you not do this right now? I’m really not in the mood.” Spot shrugged and went back to his stir fry. 

Several hours later, after Spot left to go to Asheville, where all of the good gay bars were, Davey sat alone in his room. Stacks of papers were spread out in front of him, but Davey wasn’t paying any attention to them. He was on Twitter, scrolling through his ex’s feed. Spot had explicitely banned Davey from obsessing over Ben’s online presence, but if Spot wasn’t here, he couldn’t stop him. Ben had just gotten back from a trip to the beach with his family. There was a picture of him building a sand castle with his twin nieces, and Davey almost liked the tweet, just as a reflex. He mentally scolded himself and moved the cursor far away from any like or retweet buttons.

Without realizing how much time had passed, Davey found himself all the way back at the tail end of summer, to the last time Ben mentioned him on Twitter. He posted a picture of the two of them at DuPont State Forest. They were standing in front of a waterfall, smiling widely. Davey had to take the picture because he had longer arms. “Soaking up the end of summer before the boyf has to go back to teaching brats about evolution,” the caption read. There was one reply, posted five minutes after it was posted, by Davey. “#PunnettSquares”. Ben dumped him two days later.

Davey swallowed past the lump in his throat and left Ben’s page before he messed up and clicked on something. He sighed, staring at his home page for a moment, before getting out of the bed. He paced around his room, gathering laundry from the floor. He had become a bit of a slob since the break up. Looking put together outside of school didn’t seem so important anymore. When everything was off of the floor, Davey hoisted his laundry basket, dropping the bottle of detergent and a handful of quarters on top. 

The complex’s laundromat was on the other side of the building in a side building that also housed the maintenance equipment. A bank of washers and dryers lined opposing walls with a few tables and chairs lined up in the middle. It was usually pretty empty on Saturday nights. He carefully sorted the laundry into two separate machines, poured the detergent in, fed the machines some quarters, and got them started. Once the laundry was running, Davey sat down at one of the tables and opened a pdf of a book on his phone. After he once left his clothes in the dryer for two minutes too long and his favorite jacket got stolen, he never left his clothes unattended anymore.

The laundry room was warm and comforting. It smelled clean, like detergent, and about half of the lights were burnt out, which took away the harshness of the fluorescents. It reminded him of playing hide and seek with Sarah at their grandparents’ house before Les was born. There was a tiny crawl space in the laundry room and Davey used to hide there, curled into a tight ball amongst the boxes, holding his breath to avoid giving himself away.

Fifteen minutes into the laundry cycle, the door to the laundromat opened. Davey looked up from the book on his phone and was surprised to see Jack, the painter from the farmers market, walk in. He was wearing a pair of blue plaid pajama pants and a grey t-shirt stained with paint. His laundry basket was just a plastic storage tub. One of the handles was taped together with yellow duct tape. “Hey!” he said, clearly also surprised to see Davey there. “What are you doing here?”

“Laundry,” Davey said, gesturing to the machines. “Do you live here?” 

“Yeah. You?” 

Davey shook his head. “No. I just come here to read.” 

“Huh. Okay.” Jack opened a machine and without bothering to sort anything, dumped all of his clothes in. Davey winced internally as he overloaded the machine. 

“I’m kidding,” he clarified. “I live here.”

“That makes more sense.” Jack shoved his laundry down, packing it more tightly, before dumping in a massive cap full of detergent and slamming the lid shut. “How come I never see you around?” he asked once the laundry was going. 

“I don’t really get out much,” Davey said, fully aware of how pathetic he sounded. Their apartment complex had a dog park, a fire ring, and a pool, but Davey didn’t use any of them. He parked in the closest available spot to his building, went inside, and stayed there until it was time to leave. He rarely even went to the mailboxes. Spot usually got it. 

“Do you want to come hang out at my place while the laundry’s running?” Jack asked. “My roommates went out for the night.”

Davey was instantly taken aback by Jack’s forwardness. “I should probably stay with this,” he said, nodding toward his laundry. 

“Why?”

“So nothing gets stolen.”

  
Jack raised his eyebrows. “No one’s going to steal your wet laundry.” Davey was silent for a moment while he searched for another excuse. “If you just don’t want to, that’s fine. But if your laundry is your only excuse, that’s not a very good one. You can set a timer.”


	4. The Teacher and the Painter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey goes to visit Jack.

Davey found himself completely out of excuses. “Well, yeah. Okay. I guess that’s fine.” He set a timer on his phone, scheduling it to ring three minutes before the cycle was due to end. 

“You should take that with you,” Jack said, pointing at Davey’s laundry basket. “Mine got stolen.” Davey picked up the empty basket and followed Jack outside. It was still hot for most of the time, but there was a whisper of fall in the air, and it seemed to come closer every time the wind blew. Jack led Davey down the sidewalk to building seven. His apartment was on the first floor next to the curb. The door was unlocked and Jack let himself in, holding the door open for Davey. 

The apartment was surprisingly clean. Going off of Jack’s general aesthetic, Davey had expected a mess, but there was a neat cream colored rug on the floor of the living room with two cheap but comfortable-looking couches facing each other by a large TV. Several game consoles were stacked on the shelves under the tv with games lined up next to them. There was artwork all over the walls. They were all paintings, mostly depicting animals and people. They had a vaguely abstract style, painted in bold colors with strong lines and angles. 

Jack didn’t stop in the living room. He went straight down the hallway, which was wider than the one in Davey’s apartment, and opened the door to the last room. This room, his bedroom, was more in line with what Davey expected. The bed was unmade, clothes littered the floor, making Davey wonder why Jack didn’t go ahead and wash those, as well. A makeshift paint studio was set up in the corner with a large, stained easel and a half-painted canvas. Davey couldn’t tell at this point what it was going to be. At the moment, the painting was just a bunch of blue triangles. The large accordion folders from the farmers market were leaned against the wall behind the easel. Several soda cans and a beer bottle were balanced precariously on the nightstand. 

With a wide sweeping gesture, Jack welcomed Davey inside. “My room.” 

“I’m guessing your roommates are the neat ones,” Davey ventured. 

“One of my roommates uses a wheelchair sometimes,” he explained. “We have to keep the pathways open.”

Davey gestured to a painting on the wall. It was made up of mostly triangles and geometric shapes, but he could tell that it was a herd of zebras. The red tones of the painting instilled a sense of panic and in the very background, in a shade of red barely distinguishable from the rest of the painting, a lion waited. “Is this your artwork?” Jack nodded. “It’s pretty different from what you were selling earlier today." 

“Yeah, well,” he said. Jack took a seat on his bed and seemed to deflate slightly. “This stuff doesn’t really sell. People want the pretty landscapes and stuff. House portraits. Did you know that was a thing?  _ House portraits _ ? You just copy someone’s house off Google Street View, paint it up in watercolor, and write their last name at the bottom in a nice script and they go nuts. It’s ridiculous.” 

Davey chose not to mention the house portrait that he had commissioned for his parents last Hanukkah. 

“What do you do, Davey?” Jack asked. He gestured toward the bed, offering a seat, but Davey remained standing. 

“I’m a science teacher.” 

“High school?”

“Seventh grade.”

“Yikes!” 

Davey hesitated before realizing that he should ask Jack the same question. He had gotten rusty with the whole ‘talking to other humans’ thing. Middle school kids didn’t count and Spot wasn’t much of a conversationalist. When he was, they were both way past being polite to each other. “What do you do?” 

“I do ziplining.” 

“What?”

Jack gestured to his door, where a complicated looking harness and a helmet covered in stickers were hung. “I lead those zipline canopy tours. And, y’know, sell art.” 

“I didn’t know that was a real job.” 

“It’s not, really,” Jack admitted. “I mean, it is, for sure. But it’s not like, something I want to do forever. It’s just until I can get enough freelance stuff to get by. Can I tell you a secret?” 

“Uh, yeah?” 

“I fucking hate ziplining.” 

Davey had the sudden urge to laugh, but didn’t. “What?” 

“Yeah, it’s awful. I thought it’d be cool, but turns out? I’m a little bit scared of heights. I never thought I was until I was fifty feet up getting flung around in trees. And not to be TMI since we literally met this morning, but I have a constant wedgie all day. And I can’t do anything about it because I can’t take the harness off because, you know. I might fall out of a tree and die. And I can’t like, fix the wedgie, because it’s not appropriate and it’ll just come back.”

“That’s, uh,” Davey hesitated, looking for the right words. “Something. Why don’t you just find another job?” 

“Because most jobs are inside, and I hate being inside,” Jack explained. The laugh on his expression slowly slid away. “Also, I kind of feel like it’d be… I don’t know. A failure? If I had to sell out and get a real job.”

“Financial stability isn’t selling out.” 

Jack groaned loudly and flopped backwards so that he was lying horizontally across the bed. “That sounds so  _ boring _ . ‘ _ Financial stability _ ’. People with financial stability wear ties and shiny shoes and drive a Prius or Subaru or something.” 

“You literally just described me,” Davey said. 

Jack sat up sharply. “I did? You drive a Prius.” 

“No.” As Davey said this, Jack looked instantly relieved. “A Subaru Forester.” 

“Davey, no!” 

“What’s wrong with Subarus? Ninety-eight percent of Subarus sold in the past ten years are still on the road today.” Davey was aware that he was directly copying Subaru’s marketing materials, but he was defensive over his car. It was the biggest purchase he had ever made. 

“Can you sit down?” Jack asked. “You’re freaking me out just standing in the middle of the room.”

Davey sat down on the other end of the bed. The mattress was way more comfortable than his. “Why are you home alone on a Saturday?” he asked. “You seem like the type to go out on the weekends.” 

“Because I’m not financially stable and I can’t afford to go out,” Jack replied. “What’s your excuse? Too financially stable? Too professional?” 

“Too pathetic.” Immediately, Davey wanted to take the words out of the ether and shove them back in. He had no idea why he said that. 

Jack looked surprised by his candor, too. “What?” 

Davey could feel his face getting hot. He was probably turning red. “I’m just not really up for going out right now. I kind of just got dumped.” 

“Oh, shit. When?” 

“July twenty-third.”

“I don’t know if I’d say you  _ just _ got dumped, then.” 

“Feels like it.” 

“Breakups suck,” Jack said simply. “What happened?” 

Davey shrugged, trying to sound cavalier. “His job transferred him to New Jersey. I thought we’d do the long distance thing, he didn’t.”   
“He?” 

Davey pointed at himself. “Gay.” 

Jack pointed at himself. “Bi.” 

Davey wasn’t sure how it happened, but he and Jack fell into an easy conversation after that. They talked effortlessly about movies, books, art, travel, and food. Jack could quote most of every Fast and the Furious movie. Davey got in trouble at a museum as a kid for trying to touch a painting. Jack didn’t learn to swim until he was fourteen. Davey didn’t eat pork, but it wasn’t because he was Jewish– it was because he was obsessed with Charlotte’s Web as a child. Jack had never left the southeast but wanted to travel west. 

They took turns going to switch their laundry to the dryers and came back to Jack’s room. Jack had taken his portfolio out and was showing Davey some of his most popular paintings and comparing it to his favorites. His style was more angular, sometimes almost cubist, but his commercial work followed a more realistic style. He called them his Bob Ross paintings. 

As Jack was turning through a stack of prints, Davey stopped him. “Wait, I really like this one.” 

“Yeah?” Jack asked. It was a print of a charcoal portrait of an elderly man, face downturned, slight smile playing at the corner of his lips. “It was just some old guy I saw at an IHOP. He was all alone but just looked really happy about pancakes. And, I mean… that’s a mood.” The wrinkles on the old man’s face stood out in dark shadowed lines. His eyes, though hooded and downturned, sparkled. 

“It’s really good. He kind of looks like my grandfather.” 

“You can have it,” Jack said, holding the print out. 

“No,” Davey replied, gently pushing it away. “I can’t take that from you.” 

“It’s a print. I’ve got like, a dozen more. Seriously, take it.” 

Davey took the print, holding it carefully by the edges. “Well, thank you.” He looked up, turned toward Jack, with a small smile, which Jack returned.

Before Davey had time to process what was happening, Jack was leaning toward Davey. Their lips had just barely brushed together when Davey leaned back, pushing Jack away from him. “Oh, shit,” Jack said, turning bright red. “I’m sorry. Is that not the vibe?”

“ _ What _ ?”

“Yeah, I thought I was reading the room right, and I wasn’t, so that’s my bad.” 

“I  _ told _ you I was just dumped.”

“Yeah,” Jack said slowly. “Two months ago.” 

Davey stood up quickly. “Yeah!  _ Only _ two months ago. I should go.” 

“Come on, you don’t have to leave. It won’t happen again.”

“Nope, I’m gonna go.” Davey gathered up his phone, keys, and laundry basket and, ignoring Jack’s protests, stormed out. It wasn’t until he got home that he realized that he was still holding on to the print. He really should have left it at Jack’s apartment. 

Several hours later, the front door opened and closed. After a few seconds, Davey’s door opened. Spot was there, eyes slightly unfocused, as they always were when he had been drinking. “Good night?” Davey asked. 

“S’alright,” Spot replied. 

“How’d you get home?” 

“York was DD. Let’s make Pizza Rolls.” Davey followed Spot to the kitchen, where he supervised while Spot preheated the oven, carefully lining pizza rolls in straight rows on a baking sheet. “Did you just stay in your room all night?” he asked once they were in the oven. 

Davey shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Nope. I went out for a little while, and I’m never doing it again.” 

“What happened?” 

“It was so dumb. I went to do my laundry and this guy from the farmers market showed up and asked if I wanted to go back to his place.” 

“Which guy?” 

“Jack.” 

Spot shook his head. “Don’t know him. Did you hook up?” 

“No. He wishes. I went over there and we talked for a while and he tried to kiss me.” 

“And you didn’t want to kiss him?” 

“I did not.” 

“How come?” Davey didn’t say anything. “Was he ugly?” 

“No.” 

“Okay. Did he smell weird?” 

“Not particularly.” 

“Was he a just dick?” 

“I didn’t think he was, till he tried to kiss me.” 

Spot narrowed his eyes. “Hang on. Are you saying he was a dick because he tried to kiss you, or did he not stop when you weren’t feeling it?” 

“No, he stopped.” 

“Trying to kiss a guy who willinging goes back to your room with you late on a Saturday night isn’t exactly a dick move. It would’ve been a dick move if he didn’t stop.” Davey didn’t have an argument for that. “So tell me why you didn’t want to kiss him.” 

“It’s not exactly a secret that I’m not over Ben yet,” Davey replied. 

Spot threw his hands in the air, more animated when drunk than he normally was sober. “Have you never heard of a rebound? Jesus Christ, Dave.”

“I’m not a rebound kind of guy.”

Spot pointed a slightly shaky finger at Davey. “You make me sad.”


	5. Mind Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Davey finally have to face each other. Kath is still on the hunt for a story.

Jack normally loved selling at the Bear Creek Market but on Saturday morning, he found himself dreading it. He dragged his feet, packing up all of his gear slowly. Crutchie and Mush left before him, like always, so that they could get the food truck set up. He hadn’t seen Davey since Saturday night, although he tried. He spent a lot more time outside the apartment, wandering the grounds, but never caught sight of Davey. It was only when Crutchie pointed out that he was acting like an actual stalker that he stopped. 

As he drove to the farmers market lot, Jack tried to convince himself that it would be fine.  _ He’s not mad at you. He was just surprised, that’s all. He’ll probably want to talk to you today. Maybe he won’t even be there. He’s a really bad salesman– maybe Sarah will be back this week. I won’t even have to see him. That’s probably it. There’s no way Sarah will let him sell her stuff for another week _ . 

Despite his denial, Sarah was  _ not _ back. When he stepped through the gate, his gaze darted immediately toward tables five and six. Davey was there with Les already, getting set up for the week. Jack took a deep breath, steeling himself for the awkward day that was sure to follow. “Morning, boys,” he said, donning his most cheerful voice. “Gorgeous day.” 

Davey’s head jolted up from the mugs that he was arranging and he caught Jack’s eye for a moment in a wide-eyed stare. As quick as it happened, he looked away again. “Morning,” he said, a cold note stabbing through. It was one of the coolest days of the year. Les wore a hoodie with the local high school’s marching band logo on the front, and Davey had a knitted grey cardigan. There were leather patches on the elbows and rustic wooden buttons. An olive green button down peeked out from underneath. It was, Jack noticed, a very hot teacher look. He was suddenly self conscious about his blue flannel shirt over an old t-shirt. 

Crutchie rolled over clutching a paper cup, which he shoved at Jack. “Try it now. I’ve been up since five AM working on this.” 

Jack took a sip of the lemonade that he was handed and made a face. “I’m sorry, bud. This ain’t it.” He swirled the contents of the cup around, examining it. “Why are there chunks in here?” Crutchie didn’t answer immediately. “Crutchie, why are there chunks in here? You legally have to tell me.”

“I blended a pumpkin.” 

“What do you mean, you blended a pumpkin?”

“I took a pumpkin, cut it up into chunks, blended it, and mixed it into the lemonade. Mush said there wasn’t enough pumpkin flavor.”

Jack shook his head. “Dude. You  _ know _ better. They make pumpkin puree!”

“I know!” Crutchie said. “But I didn’t have pumpkin puree, I had an actual pumpkin-ass pumpkin!” He nodded subtly toward Davey, who was still setting up, and whispered. “Is that him?” Jack nodded. “Okay, I gotta go manage a lemonade empire. I’ll text you.”

Just before the public was allowed into the farmers market, Joseph Pulitzer approached Jack’s table. He owned and ran the market, but rarely actually came to any of the booths, aside from major events. “Jack,” he said. “I needed to ask you a favor.” 

“What’s up, Joe?” Jack asked. 

“The market needs a new logo. The tenth anniversary is next month, and I would like to unveil it then.” The current logo was simple– just block print with the name “Bear Creek Market” over the silhouette of a bear. “I was wondering if you would be able to do it. You do good work.” 

Jack perked up at that. “What’d you have in mind?” he asked.

Pulitzer handed Jack a sheet of paper, upon which there were several rough sketches of logo ideas. Most of them were too busy to be good logos, but Jack could pare them down to something more usable. It looked like Pulitzer wanted to move away from the bear motif and more toward a showcase of what the market actually offered with doodles of vegetables and artisan goods around the name of the market. “Yeah, I can work with this,” Jack said, nodding. “I could do a few mock-ups and see what you like best.” 

“That sounds great,” Pulitzer replied. 

“Cool. I can email you my commission rates when I get home.”

“I’m sorry?”

Jack looked up from the paper. “My commission rates? The price of my services?”

“We would make sure you were credited as the artist,” Pulitzer said. “I know it would look good as experience for future art jobs that you might try to get.”

“I don’t work for exposure,” Jack said. He passed the page of sketches back to Pulitzer. “Sorry, but I have bills to pay.”

“I’m giving you an opportunity here, Jack.” Pulitzer’s face had started to turn red. 

“I understand that, but I have other opportunities and I need to focus on opportunities that pay. Completely making a new logo takes a lot of time. And it’s a pretty short turnaround, so I’d have to postpone some other stuff I’m working on.”

“Well. When you decide that you would like to contribute, feel free to reach out to me. We may have some work for you if I haven’t found someone else yet.” Pulitzer carefully folded the paper and tucked it into his shirt pocket before turning and walking away back down the artisan corridor. Jack scowled at his retreating back. 

“What do you mean, you don’t work for free?” Davey asked, the note of sarcasm in his voice clear. A small smile crossed his face. Jack couldn’t be sure, but it seemed like Davey may have been forgiving him. 

“I know,” Jack said. “I’m really unreasonable, but it’s all about the money.”

The market was opened and customers began to trickle in. Down the corridor, a crowd had started to gather around a booth. It was hard to tell which booth it was, but it looked like it may have been Albert’s bakery booth. 

Across the corridor from Albert, Race’s booth had no customers. Business had been bad since vaping had been in the news so much.  _ Really _ bad. This week seemed worse than the one before, which was worse than the week before that. It wasn’t just business at the farmer’s market. The shop was getting fewer and fewer customers. Most of the ones who did come in were just getting CBD products, which wasn’t his main stock. Race couldn’t blame them. Even if there wasn’t solid proof yet that vaping was bad for you, it was a pretty safe assumption that it wasn’t particularly  _ good _ for you. 

He was about an inch away from locking up the shop, texting his manager, wherever he might be, and leaving for good. It was just hard for him to handle jobs where he had to sit still or be quiet for long periods of time. At the shop, he could play music and video games and chat with whatever customers  _ did _ come in. He had a job in an office doing data entry for about a week once. As soon as he was released from training, he quit. 

Race’s phone vibrated and he glanced at it. There was a Snapchat notification from Spot. He opened it to see a picture of Spot, holding a stack of one dollar bills fanned out in front of his face. Race counted quickly before sending back a response.  _ $14. Nice.  _ He opened his cash box and took a picture. It was empty except for the envelope of small bills labelled “CHANGE”. 

He and Spot started sending snaps back and forth. They hadn’t done anything to purposefully maintain it, but their snap streak was already twenty-three days long. As Race posed for a selfie, he was interrupted. “Taking selfies in the middle of a farmers market at a vape stand is a bold look.” Race put the phone down and looked to his left, where Kath was smirking. 

“Just sharing my beauty with the rest of the world. What’s up?”

“Digging for a story,” she said, gesturing to her always-present notebook. 

“Any luck?” 

“Absolutely not. So far, I’ve got ‘They might change the market’s logo’ and ‘The pottery girl’s leg is broken’.”

“Inspired.”

Kath rolled her eyes. “I think I’ll just do a story on Sarah. At least that way, I don’t have to interview Joe.”

“Maybe you could do an accessibility thing,” Race suggested. “You know, how vendors have to park a million miles away and carry all of their stuff in. Maybe rope Crutchie in, since he has to sort of piggyback off of the food truck to get his shit in.”

Kath pointed her pen at Race. Her eyes were starting to take on a faraway quality as she thought about the article. “You’re a genius.”

“That’s what they tell me.”

“Hey,” Kath said without looking up as she scribbled ideas in the notebook. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“I think I’m going to Asheville with Jack. Spot said he might be going out tonight, so I might try to ‘accidentally’ run into him.” 

“Why can’t you just ask him out like a normal human?”

“It’s not like that,” Race said defensively. “We’re just casual, you know? We’re not there yet.” 

“Well, have fun with your pointless mind games.” Kath glanced over Race’s shoulder down the corridor, where Jack was chatting up a couple of girls. Race turned around to see what she was looking at, then looked back at Kath. He reached over and tucked away a stray lock of her hair. Kath smiled warmly at him. “Excuse me, I have a story to chase.”

She straightened the hem of her shirt and walked over to Jack’s booth. He had just finished making a sale, and one of the girls walked away clutching a plastic-wrapped print of a sunset over the mountains. “Hi, Jack.” 

Jack flashed her a wide grin. “Kathy! Hey!”

“How’s business today?”

“Pretty good. Joe’s been bugging me to redesign the logo for free, but good other than that.”

“Yeah, I heard about that.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Where’d you hear that?”

Kath held up her notebook. “It’s my job to hear everything. Speaking of–” She turned to face the boys at Table 5. The younger one, whose name she couldn’t remember, was drinking a huge milkshake and texting. “Do you think your sister would be open for an interview?”

Davey shrugged. “I guess so. I forgot to ask her about it, but she’s going pretty stir-crazy. She could probably use some company.” 

“Great! Could I get her number?” Davey didn’t respond. He just gestured to a stack of business cards on the table, all of which had Sarah’s contact information printed on the back. “Oh, right. Thanks.” Kath pocketed a card before turning back to Jack. “Race said you guys are going out tonight?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. He was adding his last sale into the ledger and seemed a bit distracted. Math had never really been Jack’s strong suit.

“You’ll have to show me some good places sometime,” she said. 

“Yeah, for sure.” Jack counted on his fingers before writing a number in. Once that was done, he looked back at Kath. “Sorry. Math. Anyway, yeah– I’d love to.”

“Okay, great! Thanks again, Davey.” 

Once Kath was gone, Davey passed Les a few dollars. “Go get me some food.” 

Les took the money. “Can I get something?” 

“Yeah, whatever.”

“What do you want?”

“Surprise me.” After Les started off toward the food trucks, Davey leaned slightly in the direction of Jack’s table. “You wanted to set her up with Sarah, right?” 

“Yeah,” Jack said. “I think they’d be good together. They’re like, the two coolest girls I know.”

“That’s great. Are you sure she’s gay?” Davey asked.

“Kath? I mean, she’s bi. But still.” 

“Okay,” Davey said slowly. “Cool.” He looked at Jack for what seemed like a second more than was necessary before turning back to the book he was reading. 

“Wait!” Jack said. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing. I’m sure it’s fine.


	6. Table Fees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vendor fees at the Bear Creek Market have gone up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back (again)! I plan on actually finishing this fic this time around. I mean, what's a better time to write a story about fall than the beginning of July?  
If you need a refresher on what's happened so far, feel free to start back at the beginning.

The last week of September brought with it a cold snap, bringing temperatures down to the low sixties during the day for the first time of the season. All over town, people had pulled their heavier jackets out of storage. The leaves had begun to change and were expected to be at their peak in mid-October.

When Jack got to the Bear Creek Market on Saturday morning, most of the booths weren’t fully set up yet. The vendors were crowded around the bulletin board where notices were posted for sellers. “What’s up?” Jack asked Race, who was standing near the back. 

“Joe upped the booth fees,” Race said. “Starting next week, they’re almost twice as much.” 

“_What_?” Jack yelped. He stood on his toes to crane his neck over the head of a woman in front of him. “But I can barely cover the fees as it is.” 

“I know. Sounds like a lot of people are in the same boat.”

“He already raised prices at the beginning of the season,” Mush said, leaning past Race to look at the board.

“Yeah, effective October 1st,” someone was saying. Jack turned to see Davey on the phone with someone, relaying the information. If he had to guess, it was Sarah. 

“This isn’t fair,” Race said. “I’m barely staying open as it is.” 

“Might as well open an actual restaurant for those fees,” Mush agreed. “Got any ideas, Jack?” 

Jack was staring at the board. The crowd had cleared out some as the other vendors accepted the new price and went to set up their booths. It was just a printed out sign, tacked up over business cards and other notices. “I’m thinking,” he said. Finally, he shook his head. “We’re already here. Might as well get set up. I’ll talk to Joe.” 

As the others headed toward their tables, Jack composed a text to Joseph Pulitzer. They had never texted before, but all of the vendors had Joe’s number. “_Can you come by my table sometime today? Want to talk about the new price. Table 6. -Jack Kelly _”. Dejected, Jack hauled his paintings and displays to his table. Table 5 was already set up. Les had been carefully stacking pottery while Davey talked to Sarah. 

Davey got there a minute later. “The new price is ridiculous,” he said. “Sarah doesn’t know if she can cover the table fees anymore. She– well, you know. I’m not a salesman, so she hasn’t been making as much as usual.”

“Is she going to have to stop coming?” Les asked. 

“I don’t know. I suggested that she look into joining the Brook Waters market.” 

“That’s not a bad idea,” Jack said. “I might try that, too, if Joe doesn’t back off. Everyone could just move to Brook Waters.”

Down the way, Albert was watching Smalls, who was setting up the deep fryer. He had just hired her, and now it looked like she might have to go. He couldn’t afford a staff with the new fees. Smalls had been so excited to get the job, too. She wanted to be a baker and working with Albert helped her get experience that she could use in the future. Albert felt absolutely awful. She didn’t work many hours, so keeping her on didn’t take a whole lot. If he decided to keep her, the wages would have to come out of his own pocket and he would probably be in the black, making a negative profit. 

Smalls caught him staring. “What’s up, boss?” she asked. 

Albert shrugged. “Nothing.” 

“You’re trying to decide whether or not you should fire me, aren’t you?”

“Um…” Al bit his lip. “I don’t know yet. I want you to stay. I just… have to figure it out.” 

Smalls nodded. “I get it. I want this job. But I mean… I get it. It’s bullshit.” 

“It’s bullshit,” Albert agreed.

Smalls was almost like a little sister to Albert. Their parents had been friends in high school, so Albert remembered Smalls always being there for Fourth of July celebrations, birthdays, and Christmas parties. Their age gap was big enough that they rarely ever played together as kids, but she was always there on the periphery. Firing her would be like firing family. Whatever happened, Al did _ not _ want to fire Smalls.

By the farm stands, Specs tossed an apple across the aisle. Romeo caught it and grinned. “Thanks,” Romeo said. 

“Just picked those yesterday,” Specs replied. 

“Beautiful.” Romeo took a bite out of the apple. “Can y’all cover the new fees?” 

“Yeah, but we shouldn’t have to. It’s not right. They can’t just change the price on us randomly. But I mean, this is the biggest time of year on the farm, so we’re doing okay.” 

“Us, too. We’ve got the haunted trail opening next week, and the lock-in’s coming up, so we’ll be fine. I’m just pissed off. It’s the principle of the thing, you know what I mean?”

Throughout the morning, vendors crossed over to other tables to talk about the new prices. Some of the bigger vendors, most of whom were attached to brick and mortar stores, were annoyed but not especially worried. Booth fees were just a drop in the bucket for them. Others, like Jack, wouldn’t be able to afford it. 

Jack waited all morning for Pulitzer to stop by his booth. Around half an hour before the market was supposed to close, Jack got a text back. “_Questions and concerns regarding table fees may be directed to vendors@bearcreekmarket.com__._” Jack sat back in his metal folding chair, defeated. He had hardly made any sales all day. There was a big football game at App State that weekend that drew the crowds away from the market and for the ones that were there, Jack’s natural sales charm just wasn’t on par with his usual standard of work– and now Joe wasn’t even going to come talk to him. 

A shadow fell over his table and Jack looked up. Kath was there, notebook in hand. “Kathy P,” he said, mustering all of the energy he had left into a smile. 

“Hi, Jack,” Kath said. “Rough day?”

“You could say that. Did you hear about the jack-up?” 

“Yeah. Looks like I’ve finally got a story this week. Pulitzer says he wasn’t making enough money on vendor fees to cover the cost of the fairgrounds in the off season.” 

“Where’d you hear that?” 

“I told you,” she said. “It’s my job to know.” 

“Huh. Well, he should’ve thought about how much the fairgrounds were gonna cost when the season started, the _ first _ time he raised the price.” 

“I agree. What’s your plan?” 

It wasn’t the first time, or even the fifth, that Jack had been asked that over the course of the morning. He looked down at the sketchbook in his lap, where he had been half-heartedly drawing a bear. The snout was too long. He’d have to fix that. “I think…” Suddenly, Jack spun to face the pottery table. “Les. Can you do me a favor?” 

Les had been playing a game on his phone and paused it. “What’s up?”

“I need you to run around and tell everyone that we’re having a meeting. Tonight. At, uh… eight.” 

“Where?” 

“The Reserve,” Jack said. “We’re gonna figure this out.”

Without asking Davey, Les stood and started going from table to table, chatting with the other vendors.

“Do you think Sarah can make it tonight?” Jack asked Davey.

“I don’t know,” he said. “She had knee surgery last week. I guess I can check…” 

“Try to get her there.” Jack turned back to face Kath. “That’s my plan,” he said. “For now.” 

“Mind if I sit in?” Kath asked. 

“I’d love to have you.” 

If Davey was to be honest, a small part of him was hoping that Sarah would decide to pull out of the Bear Creek Market. It would be nice to have his Saturdays back. It wasn’t that he was ever especially busy on Saturdays, especially since the breakup, but it was nice to know that he had the _ option _. When he drove back to his parents’ house after the market, Les spent the entire drive cursing Joseph Pulitzer’s name. “We’re going to the meeting tonight, right?” Les asked. 

“I probably will,” Davey replied. “And I’ll see if Sarah wants to.” 

“What about me?” 

“You can’t come.” 

“_Why_?” 

“Because you’re too young,” Davey said. 

Les put his feet up against the dashboard, which he knew Davey hated. “I’ve been doing all of the work.” 

“Feet down.” 

“No.” Davey swung out an arm to try to push Les’ feet off of the dash, but Les kicked out and hit his arm. “Pay attention to the road.” 

“You’re right.” Davey pulled over to the side of the road. They were on a mostly empty street with only a few houses dotted along the sides and a gas station about a mile away. “Take your nasty feet off of my dashboard.” 

“Let me come to the meeting.” 

“I don’t bargain with children.” 

“I’m not a child.” 

With that, Davey turned the car off and got out. Les prepared for an onslaught. Davey came around to the side of the car and pulled the handle to the passenger side door. It was locked. Les stuck his tongue out at Davey. “Open the door,” Davey said. 

“No.” 

“Les, open this door _ now_.” 

“Let me come to the meeting.” 

Davey shook his head and walked back around to the other door. Les unbuckled his seatbelt and lunged across the car, yanking the door shut and locked. Davey put a hand up against the window. “Les, I swear I will kill you.” 

Les yelled from inside the car so Davey could hear him. “Let me come to the meeting.” 

“It’s freezing out here. Let me in.” 

“Let me come to the meeting.” 

“No!”  
“Yes!” 

A shiver ran through Davey as a gust of wind burst through the trees. A few cars drove by, and Davey pressed himself against the car door to avoid getting hit. “Fine, I’ll bring you. Now open the door.”

“Promise.” 

“I’m not–”

“Promise,” Les demanded. “Or I’m not opening the door.” 

“Fine. I promise.”

There was an audible click as the doors unlocked and Davey let himself into the car. Dramatically, Les took his feet off of the dashboard.

They finished the drive to the Jacobs house and Davey found Sarah in front of the TV, leg propped up. “Hey,” she said. “Any news about the table fees?” 

Davey had filled her in over the phone as soon as he saw the sign. “Not yet. That guy, Jack, tried to talk to Mr. Pulitzer but just got some form response.”

“How were sales?” 

“Not great,” Davey admitted. He passed her the cash box. “Crowds were down today because of the game.”

Sarah counted the money and frowned. “Yeah, this isn’t going to cover it. I don’t know if we can keep selling there. I might just have to double down on the Etsy shop.” 

“Jack’s having a meeting tonight to talk about things,” Les said. “He wants you to come.” 

“Only if you can,” Davey corrected. “I know you’re kind of immoble right now.” 

Sarah shook her head. “No, I want to go. I need to get out of this house. We’ll just use the wheelchair.”

“You don’t have to go. I’ll make sure to get all of the information for you.” 

“Dave. It’ll be fine.”

Mush was trying to decorate. It was almost October, which meant that it was officially Halloween. He dragged a plastic tub of decorations out of storage and was now attempting to hang a garland of bats across the living room. “Will you give me a hand?” he asked Jack, who was pacing around the living room. 

“Yeah,” Jack said distractedly. “In a minute.” He made no motion to come help Mush. 

Mush watched him for a minute before it was clear that Jack had no intention of helping. “You know, it’d probably take your mind off of things if you’d help me out.” 

“I don’t need to take my mind off of things,” Jack said. “I need to figure something out.” 

“Will you at least hand me the hammer?” Jack passed the hammer over and Mush tacked in a nail to hold the garland up. “You’re not responsible for the entire market,” Mush said. “You know that, right?” He finished hanging the garland. “How’s that look?” 

Jack stood back to look at Mush’s work. “It’s uneven.”

“You didn’t help, so you don’t get to complain.”


	7. Meeting at the Reserve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vendors of the Bear Creek Market meet to discuss what they're going to do about the raise in prices.

They met at the Reserve’s fire pit. Some people were sitting on the ground, while others were in folding chairs that they brought from home. Davey had brought Les and Sarah, who was in a borrowed wheelchair with her knee in a complicated-looking brace. Even Davey’s roommate, who didn’t even work at Bear Creek Market, was there. Some of the farmers, including Specs and Romeo showed up. Albert was there, sitting with Crutchie and Mush. Kath showed up just before the meeting and smiled brightly at Jack. Jack waved and gestured to the seat beside him, which incidentally, had Sarah on the other side. 

Race sidled up to Spot. “Fancy seeing you here,” he said. Spot shrugged. 

“Okay,” Jack said, calling the meeting to order. “So, y’all have all heard that Joe jacked up the table fees, right?” A muttered  _ yes _ swept through the group. “So we’re here to figure out what’s next. Like… do we just let them charge us whatever they want, just because they can?”

“No,” Crutchie said from his spot next to Jack. 

“No, we don’t,” Jack agreed. “So I’m thinking, maybe we could all move to Brook Waters.”

“Don’t bother,” Spot said. “Our prices got raised, too.”

“Oh. And you’re…” 

“Spot Conlon.” 

Jack’s eyes flitted to Race, who smiled sheepishly. “Okay. Well, that sucks. That kind of blows my plan.”

“You might as well make your own market,” Davey muttered to himself. 

Jack overheard him. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing.” 

“No, you said we should make our own market.”

“I was being sarcastic,” Davey said. 

“That’s fine, it was a good idea. How do we start a market?” 

“You don’t!” Davey argued. 

“I feel like we’d just need some place to put it,” Specs said from the back. “We’d have to bring our own tables.” 

“We could do it at the school,” Les suggested. 

“No,” Davey said. “The school doesn’t let independent businesses use their property.”

“What about here?” Crutchie asked. “There’s the big field next to building four.”

“That might work,” Mush said. “We’d just have to get permission from the property managers.” 

“Fuck that,” Race said. “Y’all are paying rent here, so you can do what you want with the land.”

“I agree,” Spot said. “This is our place.”

“What about Larkin’s?” Romeo suggested. 

That perked Jack up. “Do you really think Medda would let us do that?” 

Romeo shrugged. “I mean, I haven’t asked her yet. But we’ve got the fallow field, and it’s not being used for anything. I could ask. She loves you.”

Everyone knew Larkin’s farm. They had all grown up going on field trips to the farm to pick strawberries or pet goats. Half of them had worked at the farm at some point. During fall, it was home to a massive pumpkin patch, corn maze, and haunted trail. Medda always hired a bunch of teenagers to dress up as zombies and ax murderers and jump out at people. 

“Would you ask her?” Jack asked. “That would be kind of perfect.” 

“We could probably get some good traffic,” Crutchie said.

“Exactly.”

“Sure,” Romeo said. “I’ll talk to her tomorrow and let you know.” 

“Okay,” Jack said. “That’s a tentative meeting place. We’ll need a name.” 

The group went silent for a moment. “All of my business cards say Bear Creek Market,” Sarah said. 

“Mine, too,” Albert added. 

Jack put a finger to his lips, thinking. “Yeah, so do mine. We could just use the same name.” 

“I’m pretty sure you  _ can’t _ just use the same name,” Davey pointed out. 

“My cards don’t say shit about the Bear Creek Market,” Spot said.

“Good for you,” Davey replied. 

Spot shoved him. “I just mean, I’m pretty sure some people from Brook Waters are going to want in on this. We’re getting fucked over, too. The name shouldn’t just be Bear Creek.” 

“That  _ is _ the name of the town, though,” Crutchie said. 

“How about ‘The Independent Bear Creek and Brook Waters Market’,” Race suggested. 

“Too long,” Spot said. 

“TIBCBWM.” 

“That’s nothing. That literally means nothing.” 

“Tib-cab-wham.” 

“Does literally  _ anyone _ else have an idea?” Specs asked.

“What if we just keep it simple,” Sarah said. “‘The Market’. It’s still a Bear Creek market, since it’s still in town, and it’s still a Brook Waters market, since Larkin’s is right by Brook Waters.” Brook Waters was a neighborhood that had expanded to the point of almost being a miniature town within Bear Creek. 

“I kind of like that,” Kath said. She had been quiet during the meeting, choosing to sit back and write things down as they happened. “I mean, it’s definitely vague, but this would be a third market in town. You don’t want to overcomplicate things.”

“‘The Market’ it is, then.” Jack wrote the name down on a big piece of paper he had brought, with ‘Larkin’s?’ written just underneath. “What do we need?” 

“No table fees,” Race said. 

“I think that kind of depends on what Medda wants to do, but I’ll write it down.” 

“I need a power source,” Albert said. 

Jack paused. “Do you think you could do it without a power source? I mean, if we’re doing this out in a farm field, that might not work.” 

“I guess. I’ll just have to ditch the deep fryer and go back to using a regular cooler.” 

“If you can make it work, try.” But under ‘no table fees’, Jack wrote ‘power source?’

“How much wattage do you need?” Mush asked. “You might be able to hook up to my truck. I don’t know if I could run a whole refrigeration unit, but we could probably power a deep fryer.”

No one else had major demands. Mush would need a place to park his food truck and everyone would need tables, but people were willing to donate the use of tables they already had. A few of the more financially successful businesses offered to buy a couple of cheap folding tables. 

Davey had to admit, he was impressed. Things were coming together quickly. Although they didn’t officially have a location yet, Romeo assured everyone that he would do his best to talk Medda Larkin into letting them use the field. They had even drafted a mission statement and Jack was in the process of sketching up a design for a logo. 

When the meeting adjourned, it was after ten PM. “We need to get Les home,” Sarah said. 

“I’m not tired,” Les argued. 

“Yeah, but you know Mom doesn’t like you staying out late.” 

Davey drove them back to their parents’ house, but didn’t come in. He was just ready to go home. Of course, when he checked his phone as he pulled back into the parking lot of The Reserve, he had a text from Spot. “ _ Hey, can you hang out at your parents or something for a bit? Race is coming over for a while _ .” There was a winking emoji. Davey rolled his eyes, wishing that he had bothered to check his phone before leaving the house. Instead, he locked the car and wandered over to the fire pit. 

The fire had gone out, and Davey almost didn’t see Jack, who was still sitting out there. His back was hunched, facing away from the cold breeze, and he was bent over a sketchbook using his cell phone as a light source. Jack jumped when he heard Davey approach and a thick pencil line jolted across the page. “Sorry,” Davey said. “I didn’t realize you were out here.”

Jack flipped his pencil over and started erasing the line he made. “You’re good. What are you doing? I thought you didn’t go outside.” 

“I was already outside.” 

“Yeah, but you could be inside.”

“My roommate is… I don’t know. Getting together with Race? Hooking up with him? Something. I didn’t get the memo until after I dropped Sarah off.”

“Bit late to be locking someone out of their apartment, huh?” Jack asked. 

“It’s fine.” Davey shrugged. “I don’t really mind so much. A bit of warning would’ve been nice, but… you know how it goes.” 

Another gust of wind ripped through them and Davey pulled his jacket in close. “You want to come back to my place?” Jack asked. Davey made a face. They both remembered what happened the last time he went to Jack’s apartment. “Not for that. I’m not going to try anything with you– I know how to take a hint. We can even sit in the living room where my roommates can chaperone, if that makes you feel better.” Davey didn’t say anything. “You can say no, I’m just offering. It’s cold out here.” 

Davey shivered involuntarily. “Okay, fine. Just until Race leaves.”

Spot had every intention of hooking up with Race. They had been flirting back and forth for ages and, after a whispered invitation during the meeting, it really seemed like things were going to happen. They made it back to Spot and Davey’s apartment and Race wandered around, smelling the various candles that Spot had made for his business with his aunt. “I like this one,” he’d say periodically. Or “dude, this is disgusting”. When he picked up a lavender candle, Race seemed to zone out. He stared at the unlit wick, eyes unfocused, for a long time. 

“Uh, hello?” Spot finally said. 

Race blinked a few times. His eyes came back into focus. “Hi. Yeah. I’m here.”

“Lost you for a minute there.” 

“Yeah. I know. My bad.” 

“What’s up?” Spot asked. 

“I don’t even vape.” 

“What?” 

“I used to,” Race said. “But I don’t really anymore. Just like… every now and then.” 

“...Okay?” 

“People keep saying it’s killing people. I don’t know about all that but like…” Race finally put the candle down. “What the hell am I doing?” 

“Trying to steal my candle recipes?”

“Nah, I mean… with the store.  _ Vape World _ .” He said the name with disgust. 

“Why do you even work there?” 

“The owner took off and left me in charge.” 

“How is that your problem?” Spot asked. 

“It’s just… I…” 

“If you don’t like working there, fuck ‘em. Leave.”

“I don’t not like working there,” Race said. “It’s really chill in the store.” 

“Because everyone is stoned.” 

“Not  _ everyone _ is stoned. But I know the customers, people just kind of hang out and chat… I like going to the market, too.” 

“Do people even buy vape shit? At a farmers market?” 

“Not really,” Race admitted. “The CBD stuff sells well, though.”

Spot snapped his fingers. “Then that’s what you should be doing. If you’re not making money on vape shit at a  _ vape shop _ , then why is it still a vape shop?”

“What are you saying?” 

“Make it a CBD store. They’re starting to pop up all over the place.” 

“I can’t just change what type of store it is.” 

“Why not?” Spot asked. “Who’s going to stop you? Your boss? He’s off getting high in Denver.” 

“You make… an interesting point.” 

Jack’s apartment was half-decorated for Halloween. It was the first thing that Davey noticed when he walked in. There was a strand of bat-shaped garland stretching across the living room, a pumpkin on the coffee table, and a plastic tub with more decorations inside sitting open by the door. A skeleton’s arm dangled from the tub. “Very festive,” Davey commented. 

“Mush– my roommate, you know– loves Halloween,” Jack said. 

A door opened and Mush stuck his head out of the door. “I heard my name.” 

“I was just saying you love Halloween.” 

“Oh, yeah.” Mush grinned. “Boo!” He ducked back into his room, slamming the door behind him. 

Jack took a seat on the couch, sitting primly on the edge. Davey watched him for a moment as Jack made a big show of correcting his posture. “What are you doing?” Davey asked. 

“Proving that I’m a proper gentleman and I’m not going to make a move on you.” 

“Maybe we can just forget that that happened,” Davey suggested. 

Jack visibly relaxed. “I’d like that. Sit down.” 

Davey took a seat on the other couch. It was a bit threadbare and there was a stain the color of red wine on one of the cushions, but it was comfortable. “Can I ask you something?” 

“Shoot.” 

Davey voiced a question that had been tugging at him all day. “Why do you care so much about a farmers market? I mean, you’re going to a lot of trouble for this.” 

Jack bit the inside of his cheek and tugged at a loose thread in the knee of his jeans. “You’re a career guy,” he said. “I’m not.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You’re the kind of guy who, like… if someone asks you what you do for a living, what do you say?” 

“I’m a teacher.”

“Exactly. When someone asks me that, I guess technically I’m a zipline guide, right? But really, I’m an artist. But it’s a complicated answer, right? Because art isn’t what’s supporting my life. When you said you’re a teacher, you said it confidently, right? I want to get to that point, where I can just say I’m an artist and be confident about it.” Davey didn’t know how to respond to that, so he stayed quiet. “I sell some art online,” Jack continued. “And I make some money off of commissions. But it’s not the same as talking to someone and looking them in the eyes and selling something that I made. My best work is traditional art, not my digital stuff. You know what impasto is?”

“No,” Davey replied. 

Jack jumped up and ran down the hall to his room. Davey could hear some shuffling around before Jack came back, holding a large painting. It was clearly a lion, but painted using geometric shapes and dark colors. If Davey was just looking at it from a distance, it would have been hard to make out the picture. The paint was actually thick and raised, though, and formed patterns almost like fur that differentiated the mane from the face. “It’s like this. It’s the texture of the paint. You can’t  _ really _ get that with digital art. I could make a print of this, but I’d have to change the whole thing to try to fake impasto.”

“It wouldn’t be the same.” 

“Yeah! And I just feel like… I don’t know. Like if I give up on selling art face to face, I’m giving up on the whole art thing overall.” 

“I guess that makes sense. And for what it’s worth, I like this better than your Bob Ross paintings.”

After Davey left, Mush’s door opened and he and Crutchie crept out. “Is the coast clear?” Mush asked. 

“Were you two just in there listening in on my conversation?” Jack demanded. 

“Mostly,” Crutchie said. “Did I just hear a cute boy compliment your non-Rossian art?” 

“You did, but nothing is going to happen with the cute boy.” 

Crutchie snorted. “Okay, sure.”


	8. Class Clowns and CBD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vendors of The Market spend the week trying to get ready for Saturday.

Sundays in Bear Creek were active. Where some towns slowed down in the morning for church on Sundays, Bear Creek had always been fairly secular. There were a couple of churches in town, but most people didn’t go. On Sunday mornings, the roads and trails were clogged with bicyclists, runners, and people going for walks. Farms were flooded with locals and tourists stopping by to go apple picking, get the perfect pumpkin, or take family photos. It was always pretty easy to tell the locals from the tourists. All of the tourists showed up in matching red flannel and knee-high leather boots. 

Jack got a phone call around noon on Sunday, but he was up in a tree leading a Boy Scout troop through a ziplining expedition, so he missed it. There was a voicemail waiting for him when he went on his break. “Hi, Jack,” Medda said. Her voice was loud and there was the sound of some large farm machine whirring in the background behind her. “Romeo told me about your problem with the farmers market. I’d love to have y’all come set up at the farm, long as you can stay out of the way of my normal customers. Hell, you might even bring some more folks in. Can you come by here when you get a chance? I’d like to talk details with you.”

Davey’s phone was blowing up on Monday. He kept it in his desk while he taught, but it was vibrating so much that even the students could hear it rattling against a box of push pins. He opened the desk drawer and stuffed a scarf inside to muffle the noise. He had been added to a group chat for The Market and they had been making plans all morning while he worked. 

His class, as usual, was barely hanging on. Kaitlyn P. was doodling in the corner of her notes. He was pretty sure Nick was texting under the desk. And Abby was staring dreamily out of the window, which overlooked a shimmering pond. Davey knew he wasn’t a popular teacher, and he was okay with that. When Les was still in middle school, even though Davey had never been his teacher, students had always tried to pry into his private life. Now that Les had moved up to ninth grade, Davey was free. 

The day’s lesson was on parts of the cell. Davey had a Smart Board with a diagram of a plant cell pulled up, but none of the labels were filled in. “Who can come label the nucleus?” he asked. No one volunteered. No one even looked up. “Abby,” Davey called. Abby started, jerked out of her daydream. “Will you come label the nucleus?” Abby got up and wrote  _ Nucleus _ in the correct blank. “That’s right. Thank you. Now…” He scanned the class. “Nick.” Nick looked up and Davey could see him subtly trying to pocket his cell phone. “Please label the mitochondria.” 

Nick smiled slightly, and Davey prepared himself. He enjoyed calling on Nick, who was sort of a subtle joker. He was quiet and didn’t speak up much, but he had a way of cracking jokes, completely deadpan, that had Davey laughing in his car on the way home. Nick got up and walked to the board, where he took a long time answering the question. Davey could hear the class laughing quietly, but he waited until Nick was done to look. “There,” Nick finally said. He stepped to the side so that Davey could see a little doodle of himself, surprisingly accurate, with a speech bubble encompassing the blank line where  _ Mitochondria _ should have been written. Instead, Nick wrote  _ The powerhouse of the cell _ . The class laughed loudly now, more at the doodle than the answer. 

“Thank you, Nick,” Davey said. He took the Smart Board pen back and wrote  _ Mitochondria _ off to the side. “Like Nick said, the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell. They capture fuel molecules and break them down into energy through cellular respiration, which we’ll get to tomorrow.”

When the bell rang for lunch, Davey’s class rushed out of the classroom. He followed them, finding himself lost in the throng of preteens on the way to the cafeteria. It was Davey’s day for lunch duty. Teachers took turns eating in the cafeteria and keeping an eye on students instead of eating in the teacher’s lounge or their classrooms. Davey hated lunch duty. Kids always wanted to come and talk to him and he would much rather be left alone. 

As he stepped into the cafeteria, someone called him. “Davey! Hey, Davey!” No one called him Davey at school. Even the teachers called him Mr. Jacobs when students were around. Davey turned, looking around for whoever might be calling his name. Sitting at a table with one of the sixth grade science teachers, Davey saw Specs, one of the farmers from the Bear Creek Market. Specs was waving him over. “Hey!” he said when Davey got to the table. “Come sit with us.” 

Specs’ entire presence kind of unsettled Davey. He was lanky and freckly, with thick glasses that magnified his eyes. His front teeth were a little too big for his face and his nose wasn’t quite straight. Looking at him, he should have been a huge nerd. In reality, though, Specs walked with a surprising amount of grace. Nothing seemed to get under his skin and he kept the same cool, pleasant, and slightly distant expression at all times. People liked Specs. Davey saw it all the time at the market– different vendors and shoppers were always running down to talk to him, and Specs seemed to be completely comfortable with it. Meanwhile, Davey barely interacted with anyone outside of his family and household. 

Davey glanced at the teacher sitting with Specs. Ms. Carter was in her mid-thirties. They saw each other in staff meetings and planning groups, but rarely interacted outside of those. “Hi. What are you doing here?” Davey asked Specs. 

“Teaching the sixth graders about farming,” he replied. “Becca’s my cousin.” He gestured to Ms. Carter, whose first name, Davey remembered, was Rebecca. It was a small world, but that wasn’t surprising in Bear Creek. While in a big city, it was easy to run into strangers, in Bear Creek, everyone was connected by only a couple of degrees of separation. Everyone had a story about something happening to their uncle’s girlfriend’s sister or their cousin’s best friend’s mom. The only difference was, in Bear Creek, those stories were true and not just proxies for made-up stories. The woman who ran the gas station by the school had been Sarah’s Girl Scout leader. The guy who mowed the grass at the Reserve had been in Davey’s class all through school. The man who picked up trash on the side of the road every Tuesday and Thursday was a retired doctor and had delivered Les when he was born.

“That’s great,” Davey said. “You work at… one of the orchards?” 

“Yep. Lost Shoe. My family owns it.” 

“Oh, right. Yeah.” Davey had been to Lost Shoe Orchard a few times growing up. He vaguely remembered losing his first tooth there after biting into an apple.

“I know plant life is more seventh grade standards,” Becca Carter said. “But I figured it can’t hurt to give them a primer, as long as it’s relevant. We’ve been going over ideal growth conditions for apple trees. How do you know my cousin?” 

“He’s been working at the Bear Creek Market for a few weeks now,” Specs said. “Remember how I said we’re starting our own market? That was his idea.” 

“Sort of,” Davey said quickly. “I was mostly kidding.”

“Hey, a bunch of us are meeting at Larkin’s on Thursday after work to work on setting stuff up. I don’t think you responded in the group chat.” 

“Oh, yeah. I was teaching.” 

“Well, you should come!”

“I don’t know,” Davey replied. “I’ll think about it.” 

“Just as a heads up, Sarah already volunteered you.”

“Of course she did.”

As the leaves began to change for the season, business at the ziplining company that Jack worked for picked up. People wanted to rip through the orange, red, and yellow trees overlooking the Blue Ridge mountains. Tuesday brought with it the third proposal that Jack saw in September. These proposals were always awkward. The platforms in between the trees were small, with very little space for everyone. Jack always tried to stay out of peoples’ way as one person kneeled (awkwardly, as they were still being held up by a harness), another person cried, and a third took pictures. 

On Tuesday, Jack found himself half dangling from the smallest platform. He still had one foot on the platform, but the rest of his body was completely off, using the rope and harness as a support. As usual, he forced himself not to look down. This was one of the higher platforms and he knew that if he looked down, he’d be confronted with a rocky tributary of the French Broad River. 

In his mind, he was refining the design for The Market’s logo. It was simple, and he had to have the finished product to Blink that night so Blink could make up a block print of it. They were planning on making postcards of the logo, and eventually t-shirts. For now, block printing would be the fastest way to do it. 

After a few minutes of averting his gaze as he listened to crying, followed by sloppy kissing, Jack was aware of three sets of eyes on him. “We good to go?” he asked. The group nodded. “Alright. Everyone line up.”

Vape World was dead. It wasn’t especially surprising– who goes to a vape shop in the middle of the day on a Wednesday? Race was sitting on a stool behind the counter, going over a supply form, while Kath leaned over the glass countertop, writing in a notebook. “I mean, at least I’ve finally got a story,” Kath said. “We went from Crutchie trying to make pumpkin lemonade to a whole new market popping up.” 

“Did he ever get that recipe figured out?” 

“Not yet. Last batch curdled.” 

“Ah. Gross,” Race said. “Is this still your beat? Technically?” 

“Not officially. I’ll still have to cover the actual Bear Creek Market, but I figure these stories will be intertwined, you know? Headline: ‘Vendors Vacate Bear Creek Market’.” 

“Nice alliteration.” 

“Thanks,” Kath said. “So I’m thinking I can tie them together. My Saturday’s going to be pretty busy because I’ll have to go down to Joe’s market and cover that, then drive over to Larkin’s to cover you guys. But I think there’s a real story here about exploitation of local artisans and farmers for the benefit of the rich.”

“Yeah, for sure. Do you know anything about why Brook Waters upped their price, too?” 

“Well, you know. Bear Creek was the first market in town so when Brook Waters decided to open one, they really just copied what Joe did,” Kath explained. “They’ve been quietly following every policy that Joe makes for years. And now it’s like, ‘well, if he can raise prices, so can we.’”

“Bastards.”

“I know. What are you working on, by the way?” she asked. “I never see you actually working.” 

“Well…” Race put his pen down. “I’m working on a supply order. I was thinking… no one’s buying my vape shit, but the CBD does well.” He gestured to a few displays around the store. There were the CBD gummy bears under the glass display case, the dog treats, the vape oils, and even a display of CBD bath bombs. “So I was going to transition the business to do more of that.” 

“Will your boss let you do that?” 

“He never responded to my email, so I’m taking that as a yes.” 

Kath picked up a bath bomb and sniffed it. “Do these actually work?” 

Race shrugged. “Who knows. I think something like that, at such a low dosage, is kind of a placebo effect. I mean, it says it relaxes you, but of  _ course _ it does. It’s a bath bomb. But at least it smells good.” 

“It does smell good,” Kath agreed. “I’ll try one. Put it on my tab.” 

“We don’t do tabs. Pay up.”


	9. Preparations and Dinner Meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vendors of The Market prepare. Kath has dinner with an unpleasant figure.

Thursday was October 1st and instead of continuing the cold snap into the Halloween month, North Carolina’s always-mercurial weather shifted to a hot and dry spell. In the mornings, it was crisp and cool and by noon, most people were shrugging out of sweaters. Everyone who grew up in the area knew that the only way to dress was in layers.

Jack rushed to Larkin’s as soon as his shift at the adventure company was over. The farm was packed with people. Apparently, everyone thought that October 1st was the ideal day to go pumpkin picking. Couple that with the haunted trail, which would be opening the next night, and The Market, and Jack was barely able to find a place to park. He eventually found a spot by a large truck where a woman that Jack recognized as the high school’s art teacher was unloading a bunch of fake cemetery headstones from the back. “Hey, Ms. Lockwood,” Jack said. 

“Jack! How are you doing?” 

“I’m great. Just getting ready for The Market. We’re opening here on Saturday.” 

“Oh, one of my students was telling me about that the other day. I’ll have to stop by! I’m just helping out with decorations for the trail.” 

“Need a hand?” 

Jack spent the better part of twenty minutes hauling fake headstones to the staging area for the haunted trail before he was able to bring his own supplies to the field where The Market was going to be staged. Romeo had mowed, clearing the area, and went ahead and marked with chalk spray paint on the ground where tables could go, based on Jack’s count. 

When Davey pulled into Larkin’s, he had trouble finding a parking place. He had to park way back by the road and stepped in a patch of soft mud immediately. His shoe sank in halfway and Davey carefully yanked it out. Luckily, he hadn’t worn any of his nice shoes out to the farm. It was a long walk to the field where they would have the market, and the box of supplies that Sarah gave him to bring was heavy. 

At the field, there were people all over getting ready. Tables were being set out and decorations were being hung. He could see Spot off in the distance with a few guys that Davey vaguely recognized as some of Spot’s friends. By the entrance, Jack was there, painting a sign. He was being assisted by a blond guy wearing all black, including a black eyepatch. His arms were covered in tattoos, and a few tattoos crept up his neck past the collar of his t-shirt. Davey didn’t focus on that guy for long, though, because he suddenly realized that he had never seen Jack in short sleeves. Jack was kneeling over the sign with a flannel shirt tied around his waist. Davey was surprised to see that his arms were also heavily tattooed. From a distance, it was hard to make out individual designs, but many of them seemed to have the heavy geometric style that Jack favored in his art. 

He wasn’t going to say anything, but Jack happened to look up from the sign. “Davey!” Jack said brightly. “Hey!” 

“Hi. I, uh, brought some stuff from Sarah.” 

“What’ve you got?” 

Davey carried the box to the nearest table. “Christmas lights, various fall decorations, stuff like that.” 

“Perfect, thanks. Dave, how are you at painting?”

“Not good,” he admitted. 

“Can you at least paint within the lines?” Jack asked. 

“Yeah, I think I can manage that.” 

“Good. I need you to help make signs. I’ve already outlined them, I just need someone to color it in.” Jack gestured to a stack of boards. On one, he could see that the tattooed guy in all black was halfway through painting the word “PARKING”. On another, the logo that Jack made for The Market was sketched out. There was a number scribbled inside the different shapes of the logo. “It’s just like a paint by numbers. Match the number on the sketch to the number on a paint–” He gestured to an array of sample size paint cans with numbers written in Sharpie on the lid. “And just fill it in. It’s easy.”

Davey took a seat on the ground and found a number 1 on the sketch. “Hey,” the guy in all black said. “I’m Blink.” 

“Davey.” 

“Oh, you’re Spot’s roommate, right?” 

Davey took another look at Blink and finally recognized him. This was Spot’s tattoo artist friend. They worked together at the Brook Waters Market. He couldn’t remember what Blink sold at the markets, though. He didn’t look like the farming type. “Yeah, that’s me. What kind of business do you have?”

“Well, I’m a tattoo artist. But at the market, I sell dog stuff.”

“What kind of dog stuff?” Davey asked. 

“You know, like… collars, leashes, nametags, homemade treats, stuff like that. But I do some printmaking, too, so I’m helping out with promo shit for The Market.”

“Busy guy.” 

“Yeah. You’re a teacher, right? I remember Conlon telling me. What are you doing here?” 

“Filling in for my sister. She just had surgery, but she’s a potter.”

“Nice. I’ll have to stop by your table sometime. You can never have enough dishes.”

Blink and Davey worked for a while, chatting a bit, until a shadow fell over the sign Davey was painting. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Spot there. “Hi, honey,” Davey said. 

“This actually looks halfway decent,” Spot said, looking at Davey’s sign. “Oh, wait…” he leaned in closer. “Is this a paint by numbers?”

“Maybe.” 

“Okay. That’s good. I was afraid the world was crumbling apart and Dave actually got some art skill.”

“Nah, no need to exorcise the art demon out of me yet.”

“Your roommate’s kind of cool,” Blink told Spot. “How come you never bring him out?” 

Davey suddenly felt like Blink was talking about him as though he wasn’t there. “He doesn’t  _ go _ out,” Spot replied. “I try.” 

“Come on, Davey,” Blink said. “Come out with us on Saturday.” 

“I don’t…” 

“Wait.” Blink looked shocked. “Did no one tell you that teachers  _ don’t _ actually just sleep under their desks when school’s not happening? You know that’s just a myth, right? You’re allowed to go out.” 

“I’m kind of getting over someone.” 

“Oh, did you think I was hitting on you?” Blink laughed. “Oho! No. Listen, I’m not saying you need to go out and fall in love. Just… go out and actually have some fun for once.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Spot said.

“I’ll think about it,” Davey replied. He had no intention of going out with them on Saturday, but hoped that agreeing to consider it would get Blink off of his back. He could tell by the look on Spot’s face that Spot wasn’t convinced, but Davey was used to that. He’d have Spot trying to convince him to come out until he finally left on Saturday night. 

The archway was coming together. Jack had suggested some kind of marker to signify where The Market began, saying that maybe they could have a line of pumpkins creating a path to the entrance. Romeo could do pumpkins, but he could also do one better. With the help of Specs and Albert, he built a huge wooden arch that would stand at the entrance. When it was built, it was just a few planks and two by fours nailed together, but as it took shape, it began to transform. 

After they added the chicken wire, Jack jumped in to help. They wove greenery, flowers, and vines through the chicken wire. Sarah had donated a bunch of fake autumn foliage, and one of the vendors that came from the original Brook Waters market agreed to sell some flowers at a steep discount for them to use every week. The flowers would have to be added on Saturday mornings before the market so they didn’t immediately wilt, but they left space for them. Under their hands, the archway turned from a utilitarian wooden arch to a lush gateway that wouldn’t look out of place in a fairy garden. 

“You’ve outdone yourself,” Jack said, clapping Romeo on the back as they stood back to admire their handiwork. 

Romeo carefully rearranged a bit of greenery that was sticking out too much. “It  _ is  _ pretty good, huh?” he asked. “I figure it’ll be a pretty good photo op, you know?” Half of the customers at Larkin’s seemed to just be there for the photo ops. He pulled out his phone and took a picture of the arch. 

The Market was taking shape. Romeo had worked at Larkin’s since high school, and he had never seen the fallow field look like this. There  _ was _ a line of pumpkins leading in a pathway to the arch. After that, there was a spot for the food trucks. Medda had agreed to let them use her most beat-up picnic tables. They had been sitting in storage for years after a local Boy Scout troop volunteered to build new ones. After cleaning them up and slapping on a coat of paint, they looked perfectly fine. 

The Market was set up similarly to the Bear Creek Market. Food trucks and stands were first, followed by farms and fresh produce, and finally, artisan goods. The tables didn’t match, but the vendors all agreed to use a matching white tablecloth to make it look at least semi-cohesive. 

A old beat-up red truck pulled up just outside the market area and Romeo waved the driver over. Medda Larkin walked toward them, admiring the view. “You’ve really put something good together,” she said, squeezing Romeo’s shoulder. 

“It looks nice, right?” he asked. 

“Are these my pumpkins?” 

“Yes, ma’am. But they’re for sale.” Romeo flipped through the stack of signs that Blink and Davey painted. One of them said  _ Pick your own pumpkin _ with prices listed. 

“Atta boy.”

Kath hated dinner Joe’s house. She only came over once every week or two. It was the kind of house where you had to  _ dress for supper _ . She couldn’t show up in whatever she had worn all day. None of her other friends had to dress for a job interview every time they sat down for dinner with their father.

His stupid dining room table was too long. It reminded Kath of one of those tables that you would see in a rich but distant family’s dining room. Which, she supposed, was not entirely inaccurate. Still, it was just Joe and her. There was no reason for them to sit a full eight feet apart. If this were her real family’s table, they would all sit at one end, close enough to pass the salt without having to get up and walk it down the table.

“Are you still enjoying your newspaper job, Katherine?” Joe asked. The meal had been quiet and awkward. 

“Yes,” she replied reluctantly. “But I’d like to switch beats.” 

“Why? The fair is coming up.” 

That was true. The main appeal of the fairgrounds beat was the opportunity to cover the fair. It was only in town for a couple of weeks in October, but those weeks would run her ragged as she covered every story she could. “I know. And I’m looking forward to that. But the fair’s short, and once it’s over, I’ll be back digging for stories.” 

“You know, when I was your age, I always had to dig up stories,” Joe said. “Investigative journalism. Sometimes the most important news isn’t the most obvious story. You have to search. It’s what sets you apart from some idiot posting about neighborhood gossip on Facebook.” 

“Do you have a statement on half of your vendors leaving?” Kath asked, switching into journalist mode. 

Joe’s expression, which had been cold and congenial, turned stony. “That isn’t a story.” 

“I don’t know. It could be. Anyway… a statement, please?” 

“They’re only hurting themselves,” he said. 

“Seems like it’d be hurting you, too.” 

“I don’t see how.”

Kath knew he was lying. “Because you’re not getting your table fees. Because people aren’t going to want to come if there’s nothing good to buy.” 

“All of my best vendors are still there. Just because that vape boy you like left…” 

“Your best vendors? Like who? Patty with her cole slaw stand? No one goes to a farmers market for  _ cole slaw _ . Or that guy with the Bible-themed crackers?” 

“Katherine,” Joe warned. “There isn’t a story there.” She didn’t exactly know Joe  _ well _ , per se. They had never been close. But she knew well enough when he was telling her to drop it. When he said there wasn’t a story, he didn’t mean that, exactly.  _ If the news doesn’t report it _ , he used to tell her.  _ It didn’t happen _ . 


	10. The Market

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day of the new market. Will it survive?

Saturday morning seemed to be earlier than most mornings. Jack dragged himself out of bed, loaded up his portfolios and displays, and headed to the market. Crutchie and Mush were already gone, getting the food truck ready. Instead of taking a left out of the Reserve to go to the Bear Creek Market, he took a right toward Larkin’s. 

He was the first to arrive, but others started showing up not long after them. Davey pulled into an accessible parking space and started unloading a wheelchair from the backseat, which he pushed around to the passenger side to help Sarah out. Jack ran to give them a hand. Les was already loading boxes of pottery onto a hand truck. “Sarah!” Jack said. “You made it!” 

“This seemed a bit big to miss,” she replied. “I can’t stay all day, though. My parents are coming to get me later. Just wanted to make sure these guys–” She gestured to Davey and Les, “Don’t ruin all of my sales.”

Getting the wheelchair across the field to Sarah’s table was a struggle. Crutchie had also complained about his mobility across the field. It took way more strength for him to push himself across the field than it normally would. No one had said it yet, but they all knew that they would have to come up with a better solution if this was going to be a long term plan. The other parts of the farm, which were packed solid by years of visitors trampling over the paths, were fine, for the most part, but the field where The Market was set up was just too soft. 

As Jack, Romeo, and the florist from the Brook Waters Market were finishing up the archway, Medda walked up, still in her pajamas. She lived on the farm. “Looking good, boys,” she said. 

“Morning, Medda,” Jack said. “How’d the haunted trail go?” 

“Very scary,” she said. “You should come by.” 

“We’ll see,” Jack replied. It didn’t sound very convincing. 

Medda laughed and winked at him. “Y’all need anything else? I’m about to open for the day but I can send someone down to help.” 

“Nah. I think we’ve got this handled. And Medda?” 

“Yes?”

“Thank you so much.”

The Vape World booth was looking different than usual. Race hadn’t packed any of the vape oils that he normally had and focused instead on the CBD products, like Spot had recommended. There was a pyramid of bath bombs, a few gummies, and even some brownies. (“You sure these aren’t just weed brownies?” Spot had asked. “No, these are just regular brownies. No CBD involved. The weed ones are a different batch,” Race had told him.) The Vape World sign was down and there was a new banner in its place: CBD Supply. The name was a work in progress. Spot’s booth was just across the path, and the plastic folding table he had borrowed was sagging under the weight of the heavy candles. 

Around ten thirty, Kath showed up. She made her way down the pathway, taking notes and occasionally asking the vendors or customers questions. When she got to Race’s table, she stood back, admiring it. “Are these weed brownies?” she asked.

“No,” Race said. “Why do people keep asking that?” 

“Because it’s you. How’s it going?” 

“Alright. This market’s kind of scuffed,” Race admitted. “But I think it’s going okay. I’ve actually made sales.” 

“Oh, shit.” 

“Yeah. The Hearsts showed up about an hour ago and bought some stuff.” 

“Oh, yeah? How’re they doing? I haven’t talked to them since Bill moved to Charlotte.” 

“Turns out he’s back. His startup went under so he had to move home.” This kind of gossip, about these kinds of people, made sense to Race. Talking to Kath about the Hearsts was like the old days.

Kath snorted. “Already? Figures. He always had more money than business sense.” 

“For real.” Kath glanced down the way, where Jack’s table was set up near the end of the artisan area. He was talking to a customer, smiling widely. “Any progress there?” Race asked. 

“Not yet,” she replied, frustrated. “Every time I talk to him, he just kind of diverts.” 

“You think he knows you’re into him?” 

“Honestly, no. He’s so clueless. Oh, Sarah’s here.”

“Yeah,” Race said. “She wanted to make sure her brothers weren’t ruining shit.” 

“I guess I’ll go check in.” 

Down at his table, Jack was charming the pants off of a customer. She was an older woman, with flyaway grey hair and a sweater that looked hand knitted. “I think it’s amazing that you’re supportive of your granddaughter’s art,” Jack was saying. “So many families aren’t and it can really crush an artist’s spirit.” 

“She just reminds me so much of myself at that age,” the woman said. “Always painting, always has her head in the clouds. And you’re right– my parents weren’t very supportive and I stopped painting after high school.” 

Jack tutted sympathetically. “I’m so sorry to hear that,” he said. “I bet you had real talent.” By the time the woman left, he had sold three paintings. Jack leaned back in his metal folding chair, arms crossed, cocky grin spreading across his face. 

“Nice one,” Sarah said from the next table over. “See, Davey,  _ that’s _ how you make a sale.” After observing for an hour, Sarah realized that Les was a natural and Davey was the one who needed help. She gave Les money to go do the corn maze and told Davey to stay back for a bit of retail mentorship. 

“That’s not my style,” Davey said. 

“I  _ know _ it’s not,” Sarah replied. “Which is why you’ve hardly made me any money.” 

“I’m doing my best! It’s just… manipulative.” 

“You think I’m manipulative?” Jack asked. 

“I…” Davey hesitated. “I think your methods are.”

Jack shrugged. “Maybe. But I make my sales.” Kath made her way down to their tables then. “Kathy P!” Jack said. “Welcome to The Market.” 

“You’ve done a good job,” Kath said appreciatively. “I’m impressed. That archway at the entrance is beautiful.” 

“I helped make that.” 

“I figured.” 

“It was actually Romeo’s idea,” Jack said. “And we got the flowers from that guy, York? You know, the one with the eyepatch that isn’t Blink.” 

“You can’t just refer to people that way,” Kath said. 

“It’s an obvious way to point people out. Anyway, Kath, we’ve got Sarah here today!” 

“Hi,” Sarah said.

“Hi,” Kath responded. “How’s your leg?” 

“Pretty sore, but I’m going home soon. I’m still pretty heavily medicated, you know? God, I’ll be glad when I’m up and around again.” 

“Just let me know if you need anything, okay?” 

“Thanks,” Sarah said. “Davey’s been pretty good about bringing me anything I need.” 

“Are you coming out tonight?” Jack asked. “A bunch of us are going to the Lodge.” 

Kath made a face. “The Lodge? Why not just go to Asheville?” The Lodge was one of the only bars in town. It was distinctly country. There was a mechanical bull, and it wasn’t just there as a gimmick. Most people went into Asheville for the bar experience, since the bars there were bigger, more interesting, and more friendly.

“We’re all pretty busy with setup,” Jack said. “And the Lodge has half price drinks tonight for an Oktoberfest thing.”

“Are you going?” Kath asked. 

“Obviously.” 

“Well, I’ll think about it.”

Davey watched as Kath chatted with Jack for a bit longer before wandering off, notebook still in hand. Jack was always talking about setting Kath up with Sarah, but Davey had a sneaking suspicion that Kath had her heart set on Jack. After a few minutes, Esther Jacobs showed up. She gushed over how good the table looked for a while. “Are you ready?” she asked Sarah. 

“Yeah,” Sarah replied. “My leg’s killing me.” 

“We’ll get you some meds at home. Davey, are you coming for dinner?” 

“I don’t think so,” Davey said. “I think I’m just going to drop Les off.”

“Where is Les?” 

“Corn maze.” 

“Oh, fun. Okay, Sarah. Let’s go.” Carefully, she pushed Sarah’s wheelchair back down the path. At one point about halfway down, one of the wheels got stuck in a soft patch of earth and Davey watched Spot, who was closest, come help extract the wheelchair. 

“We’ve got to figure something better out for the floor,” Jack muttered to himself.

“Hey, Jack,” Davey asked. “Can I talk to you about something?” 

“Yeah, sure. One sec.” Jack had made eye contact with a customer, who made his way to the table and bought a painting. Once the customer was out of earshot, Jack turned to face Davey. “What’s up?” 

“I don’t think you should be trying to set Kath up with my sister,” Davey said. 

“Why not? Don’t you think they’d be good together? They’re both awesome.” 

“Yeah, but… I don’t think Kath is interested in Sarah.” 

“Why wouldn’t she be?” 

“I think Kath is interested in someone else.” Davey was praying to whatever god might be listening out there that Jack would get the hint. 

He didn’t. “Who?”

“ _ You _ .” 

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Nah. We’re just friends. We’ve been friends for ages.”

“You know, a lot of people end up liking their friends,” Davey pointed out. 

“Sure, but that’s not what’s happening. Trust me.” 

“Okay,” Davey replied, but he wasn’t convinced.

The Market was surprisingly successful. They lost most of their clientele from the Bear Creek Market, which was to be expected. The food trucks and farm stands drew in a few regulars, but most of their customers were people who had planned on visiting Larkin’s anyway and found themselves pleasantly surprised by a farmers market. That wasn’t a problem. If anything, the vendors were just expanding their customer base. 

Davey was exhausted when he got home. Les had gotten lost in the corn maze and only showed up twenty minutes before it was time to leave, so Davey was on his own for most of the time. After he dropped Les off, he went straight home, breezing past Spot and into his room. 

His bedroom had gotten messy again. There were three empty coffee mugs crowding each other for space on the bedside table, laundry had begun to pile up again, and his sheets desperately needed to be changed. Davey looked around the room for a moment, thinking about how if he just put the clothes into the laundry basket, it would be a massive improvement. He didn’t put his clothes away, though. Instead, he found himself scrolling through his various social media feeds.

Davey didn’t check Ben’s pages every day anymore, like he used to. Still, he checked in from time to time. When he searched for Ben’s Instagram, there was a circle around his profile picture, indicating a new Instagram story. After they first broke up, Davey used to watch every story with a near-obsession, until a horrified Spot told him that people could see when you’ve watched their story. Now, Davey had more subtle techniques. There were websites that allowed you to view a story without the poster knowing. Davey pulled up his go-to and typed in Ben’s username. This was his secret. No one could know that he still cared this much about what Ben was up to. 

He opened the story. It was a picture of a cutting board full of half-chopped vegetables.  _ Date night _ , the caption read. Another picture showed up after that one.  _ He likes it when I cook for him _ , the caption said. There was a long montage of photos, compiling the recipe. Ben had always liked to cook. Davey felt like crying. Ben was dating. Not only was Ben dating, he was dating seriously enough to bring them home and cook for them. It was something so personal and intimate that once again, Davey was hit square in the chest with the realization that no matter how much Davey missed him and waited for him, Ben wasn’t coming back. 

He slammed his laptop shut and went to Spot’s room. Spot was getting ready, swiping on deodorant. “Can I help you?” Spot asked. 

“I want to go out tonight,” Davey said. 

Spot’s eyebrows raised. “Finally.”


	11. Long Night at the Lodge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The vendors of The Market go out for a night at the town's local bar.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for alcohol in this chapter

Davey didn’t drink much. Alcohol was expensive, it tasted worse than regular drinks, and it took away his ability to get in his car and drive away from a situation. The Lodge didn’t improve the situation. The floors were sticky and creaky, it was always crowded, and the mechanical bull made a constant high-pitched sound that made Davey feel like he had tinnitus. 

Still, though, he allowed Spot to buy him a drink. They had ridden with Spot’s friends, York and JoJo, and were the first to arrive. As Davey waited by the bar for his rum and Coke, another car full of people walked in, followed by another. Spot had promised to stick with Davey all night but as soon as Race walked in, he was gone. Race had challenged him to a game of pool and they planned to stake out one of the pool tables and glare at the people already playing until they left. 

Davey found himself alone at the bar, casting his gaze around desperately for a friendly face. There was Specs, but he was dancing, and Davey  _ really _ didn’t feel like dancing. He recognized Albert, but didn’t feel like he knew him well enough to go strike up a conversation. Just as he was beginning to give up and considering calling for an Uber, Davey noticed two shorter guys, both facing away from him. From the back, they looked like mirror images of one another. 

He pushed through the crowd toward the twins. As soon as he was close enough to see Mike’s profile, relief washed through him. “Hey!” Davey said, grabbing Mike’s shoulder. He and Ike spun around. 

“Hey!” they said together. 

“Holy shit, I’m glad to see you. Spot ditched me.” 

Ike glanced between the drink in Davey’s hand and his face. “What are you doing here?” he asked. “You never go out.” 

“I, uh…” Davey hesitated for a moment. The twins had been some of his best friends since elementary school. They didn’t see each other much anymore, but they were still close. “I don’t know, just needed a night out.” 

Mike glanced over at Ike. They seemed to have a brief and silent conversation. “Are you still stalking Ben’s Instagram stories?” he asked Davey.

“I wouldn’t call it stalking.” 

“It’s kind of stalking.” 

Davey didn’t have a rebuttal for that. “Are you here with anyone?” he asked, shifting the subject away from him and social media habits. 

“Couple of friends,” Mike said. “Come meet the guys.” He led Davey through the now-crowded bar toward a group of guys, all of whom were familiar to Davey. “Guys, this is Davey. Dave, this is Jack, Blink, and Mush.” 

“We’ve met,” Jack said, laughing. “We work at The Market together.” 

“I want a shot,” Mush yelled over the crowd. 

“I’ll come help you,” Blink said. The pushed through the throng of people toward the bar.

“You know the twins?” Jack asked Davey. 

“Since we were kids,” Davey said. 

“No way!” There was an ear piercing screech then, and they all cringed from the sound of the mechanical bull coming to life. It desperately needed some WD-40. 

Blink and Mush came back, each of them carefully carrying several shots. They started passing the shots out and handed one to Davey. “That’s okay,” Davey said. 

“Don’t worry about it,” Mush replied. “You can get a round later.” 

Davey sniffed the shot. It was bright pink and smelled like watermelon candy. “What is this?” Jack yelled. 

“Jolly Rancher shot.” 

They counted down and the group took the shot. It really did taste like a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Davey decided that he didn’t much like drinking his candy. Davey looked around for Spot and found him still at the pool table, talking to Race while Race laughed. He didn’t want to interrupt whatever was happening there. 

“I can’t believe you thought you were good,” Race half-yelled, barely containing his laughter. Spot had just knocked the 8 ball in on his first shot. “That’s literally the one ball you’re  _ not _ supposed to hit.” 

“It bounced weird!” Spot said defensively. 

“No way. You lined that shot up  _ perfectly _ . But I’m not done, so you get a Mulligan.” He fished the 8 ball out of the pocket where it had landed and put it back roughly where it was before. “It’s my turn, though.” Spot shrugged. Race lined up his shot and lightly tapped the cue ball. It bounced off of a striped ball, which ricocheted off of another. They both landed neatly in two different pockets. 

“Bullshit,” Spot said. 

“Bullshit how?” 

“You hustled me.” 

“I literally told you that I’m good at pool. That’s like, the opposite of a hustle. It’s your own damn fault for not believing me,” Race explained. 

“Fine.” Spot picked up the small cube of chalk and started coating the end of his pool stick. 

“Yeah, chalk it up,” Race teased. “I’m sure that’s why your last turn was so bad.” 

“Shut up.” Spot bent low over the table, aimed, and completely missed the cue ball. 

Race burst out laughing. “What was  _ that _ ?” 

“I was checking my aim,” Spot said.

“No, you weren’t! You just suck!” Race did his best to pull himself together. “Here, let me help.” He walked around behind Spot and reached both arms around him to hold the pool stick with him. Spot was wider and more muscular than him, but Race’s arms were long and lanky and he had no trouble reaching. 

“You’re such a fucking cliche,” Spot grumbled. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m just giving you a lesson.” He lined up the shot. “Okay. Use this aim and hit it lightly.” 

Spot tapped the cue ball and it knocked a ball right into the back left corner pocket. Race stayed behind Spot a little longer than was necessary but finally stepped back. Spot turned to face him. “Okay. I’ll admit. You’re okay at this game,” he said. “I get to go again, right?” 

Race nodded. “Sure, go ham.”

Spot lined up another shot. This time, he hit the cue dead in the center and it knocked a ball right into a pocket, narrowly threading between two of Race’s striped balls.

Race’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?” he asked. 

“Lucky.” 

From that point on, Spot destroyed Race at pool. For every shot Race missed, which wasn’t many, Spot landed his. “What was that?” Race asked as Spot finally sank the 8 ball after calling his shot. “ _ You  _ hustled  _ me _ !”

“We didn’t have money on it.” 

“Yeah, but you still hustled me!”

“Maybe I just wanted the obnoxious private pool lesson.” 

Race opened his mouth a couple of times but shut it every time, at a loss for words. Finally, he pointed at Spot. “I’m going to buy you a drink.”

Davey was getting drunk. He had a bit of a scale to measure his drunkenness. He wasn’t at the point where he could no longer think straight, but he  _ was _ at the point where he kept trying to pick arguments about the Lord of the Rings. Mike and Ike kept laughing at him and goading him on, but Blink turned out to be an excellent verbal sparring partner. “I’m just saying,” Davey said after the group collectively downed yet another Jolly Rancher shot. They were getting better. “Arwen was a completely ridiculous addition to the movies.” 

“She’s basically the only female character in the whole damn thing,” Blink argued. 

“Eowyn? Galadriel?” 

“Okay,” Blink said. “So you can name three women in this whole massive series. They gave Arwen a bigger part so that women wouldn’t feel  _ completely _ excluded from the series.”

“I can name more than three. Rosie Cotton,” Davey said, holding up a fourth finger. He opened his mouth to name another, but hesitated. “Goldberry!” he finally said, triumphant. 

“Nuh-uh, Goldberry wasn’t in the movies. Try again. You’re up to four. Wow, isn’t that some incredible female representation?”

“They completely cut Glorfindel’s part and gave it to Arwen,” Davey said. 

“So? If they can cut out Tom Bombadil, they can give Glorfindel’s part to Arwen. Tell me, Dave. How does it feel to hate women?” 

“I don’t hate women!”

“Okay,” Jack said, stepping in between them. “Maybe let’s shut this down.” He and the others had been quietly watching Davey and Blink’s fight escalate for the past few minutes, laughing at them. “Getting a little intense here. Anyone want to go dance? Davey? Want to dance?”

Davey thought about it for a moment. He didn’t much like dancing. He was no good at it. But he was drunk, and Ben was dating someone, and Ben was cooking for someone, and dancing with Jack suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

Jack led Davey onto the dance floor. The Lodge played mostly country music, with a few pop hits mixed in between. It was very different from the clubs in Asheville. He kind of liked it, though. Their friends followed, but it was clear who Jack wanted to dance with. 

He had been watching Davey all night. Davey could argue with anyone and became less and less shy (and less and less polite) as the night wore on. He could take a shot like a pro and somehow, didn’t slur or stumble over weird fantasy elf names, even if he was drunk. He was a bad dancer. His entire rhythm was off, and Jack put his hands on Davey’s hips to try to correct him. It didn’t work, so Jack gave up and just danced. Davey was laughing, and Jack was laughing. And Davey was watching Jack, and he looked like he was thinking  _ so hard _ about something that Jack almost wanted to ask, but didn’t want to break their momentum. 

Davey liked his art. His  _ real  _ art. Davey called Jack manipulative to his face. He was right, but it was still a surprise. Davey was getting over someone. Davey’s hand was on the back of Jack’s neck. Davey was not interested in Jack. Davey was tugging Jack closer. Davey was kissing Jack and Jack’s brain was short-circuiting because  _ Davey  _ was kissing him on purpose and he wasn’t pulling away. Jack wasn’t going to be the one to break it. Davey was a bit sloppy but Jack had a feeling that when he was more sober, and potentially more stable, he’d be a very,  _ very  _ good kisser. Sloppy or not, Jack wasn’t complaining.

Katherine was a late arrival. She had stayed late at work to write her article on the feud between the markets in town and lost track of time. Her Uber dropped her off outside of The Lodge and after flashing her ID, she was let inside. Looking around, the bar was full of familiar faces. She waved to Race, who was flirting by the pool table with Spot. They were standing significantly closer to each other than was necessary. 

Out on the dance floor, she could see Jack, dancing and laughing with Davey. Jack’s roommate and a few other people who she vaguely recognized on sight were nearby. Kath stopped by the bar to grab a drink before starting over toward Jack. Maybe tonight she’d ask him to dance. She lost him in the crowd for a moment but found him again after a bachelorette party passed by. Davey had his hand behind Jack’s head and was pulling Jack in for a kiss. 

Jack wasn’t pulling away. 

He still wasn’t pulling away. 

Good god, why wasn’t he pulling away yet?

Kath suddenly wished she hadn’t come.

Race’s hand was tracing the lines of Spot’s fingers. He wasn’t quite sure when their hands had met, but here they were. He heard a loud whoop and turned to see what was going on. Out on the dance floor, Davey had his hands tangled in Jack’s hair as they kissed hungrily. 

Immediately, he looked for Kath. She had been by the bar. Soon enough, Race found her, standing stock still with a drink dangling from her hand, looking at Jack and Davey like all of the air had been punched out of her. “Fuck,” Race said. 

“What?” Spot asked. 

“Go pull your roommate off Jack,” he said, nodding toward them. “I need to go talk to someone.” He pulled his hand away from Spot’s, pushed through the crowd to Kath, and put an arm around her shoulders, steering her away toward the patio. 


	12. Vape World Saves the Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spot gives some dubious advice and Kath's article about The Market doesn't quite turn out as planned.

The patio of The Lodge was crowded, but not nearly as much as it had been inside. There was a row of picnic tables, a set of corn hole boards, and a second, smaller bar. Race found a couple of empty seats at the end of a picnic table and gestured for Kath to sit down. It was cool outside, with a slight breeze blowing. It felt like fall weather was coming for real this time, instead of one of the random cold snaps. 

“You okay?” Race asked. 

“I just feel stupid,” Kath said. She stared into her drink, which only had a sip or two missing. 

“You’re not stupid.” 

“I  _ know _ I’m not! I just like…” Kath sighed. “I know he wasn’t mine, or anything. It’s not like I had any claim over him.” 

“But you liked him,” Race said. 

“Yeah. But he’s always been kind of a flirt…” 

“Still, making out in the middle of The Lodge… That’s tacky.”

Kath laughed. It sounded hollow, but it was better than nothing. “It really is, isn’t it?”

“So gross.”

“What are you going to do?” 

Kath shrugged. “Move on, I guess. What else  _ is _ there to do?” 

“You don’t know that this means anything,” Race pointed out. “They could have just been drunk. We don’t know that they’re like,  _ together _ , or anything.” 

“I know. But I’m just sick of this.” 

“Which part?”

“Watching Jack Kelly flirt with everything that moves.”

“Why haven’t you told him? That you like him, I mean.” 

Kath bit her lip. She didn’t respond for a long moment. “I think… we’re different, Jack and I.”

“Are you worried about dating down?” 

“No,” she said quickly. “You know I don’t care about that.” She froze and stared at her drink, blinking a few times. “Wait, do I care about that?  _ Is _ it a money thing? Subconsciously?”

Race shook his head. His hair flopped over his face. “No. Look at me.” Kath looked away from her drink and up at Race. “I know you’re not thinking about the money. I shouldn’t have even said that. Just… people like us, we were raised to think about that stuff first. You don’t, though. You’re better than that.” 

“But I didn’t leave.”

“I didn’t leave because I wanted to, trust me.”

“I know,” Kath said. 

“God, we’re sadsacks,” Race said, then forced his face into a bright expression. “Look at you. You’re hot. You’re smart. You’re better than Jack Kelly– and not because of the money.”

“You’re being nice tonight.”

“I’ve had a good night. Besides, that’s what co-conspirators are for.”

Race stormed off, grabbing his friend and leading her out the door, leaving Spot alone by the pool table. “Shit,” he said to himself as he zeroed in on what Davey was up to. He shoved through the crowd toward Davey and grabbed him by the shoulder. Davey pulled away, a bit noisily, and looked around before finally noticing Spot. “Time to go,” Spot said. 

“I’m not ready to leave,” Davey argued.

“Yes, you are.” Spot’s phone was in hand, already calling for an Uber. There was one only a minute away. By the time he dragged Davey out of the bar, it was idling outside. 

Davey was fuming in the car. “I was actually having fun,” he grumbled. 

“There’s a time and a place. We’ll talk at home.” 

They sat in silence in the back of the Uber until it pulled into the parking lot of the Reserve. Spot and Davey got out of the car and went back to their apartment. As soon as the door was closed, Spot spun to face Davey. “The fuck were you doing?” 

“Nothing!” 

“It looked like a lot of something.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Davey lied. 

“Yes, you do. Explain.” 

Davey dropped onto their papasan chair. “You told me to find a rebound. I did. You can’t just decide all of a sudden that it’s a bad idea.” 

“You  _ do  _ need to find a rebound,” Spot said. “I think this is a great idea. I love this for you. But you can’t just do it in the middle of a bar.”

“Why not?” 

“Because it’s a bad look, it’s North Carolina, and you’re both  _ men _ .” 

Davey didn’t have a good response for that. “You were all over Race.” 

“No. I wasn’t kissing Race. We weren’t in Asheville, Dave. It was The Lodge. You wanna get your ass kicked?” 

“No one’s going to try to beat me up for kissing Jack.” 

“They could! I mean, you had friends there so you probably would’ve been fine, but you never know. You’ve gotta think.” Spot was pacing back and forth in the living room. “Why couldn’t you have just decided to do this that time when Jack tried to kiss you in  _ private _ ? Why now?” 

Davey said something so quietly that Spot couldn’t hear. 

“What?” Spot asked. 

“Ben had a date tonight.” 

Spot stopped pacing. “You’re actually still upset about that?” 

“I mean, yeah!” Davey replied. “We were supposed to get married.” 

“You  _ thought _ you were supposed to get married. You weren’t engaged. You have  _ got _ to stop thinking about him.” 

“I wasn’t thinking about him when I was with Jack…” 

“Like I said, rebounds are good. Just don’t do it in front of everyone and their homophobic mother.”

Jack needed a run. He wasn’t a great runner, by any means. He had never been very fast and one of his knees had always been a bit stiffer than the other. Sometimes, though, you wake up on a Sunday morning after kissing someone and having them pulled off of you, and you’ve just got to run it off. 

It was cool enough to wear long sleeves, although he still wore shorts to run. The only long pants he owned were jeans and one pair of dress pants. Jack really needed to invest in some sweatpants. It was still early and most of Bear Creek wasn’t awake yet. The Reserve had a few walking trails that people liked to jog. Up ahead, Jack could see a few people up and running. It looked like Mush was with them, but Jack hadn’t put his contacts in for the day and couldn’t quite tell. He generally didn’t remember his contacts until he had to drive somewhere.

Jack started down the walking path but turned off down a well-worn trail. It ran along the river and was usually less crowded than the paved trails. As he ran, he startled something into the water, but wasn’t able to catch what it was. Judging by the radiating rings left by the splash, it was something large like a beaver or muskrat, or potentially even a river otter. Jack always looked out for the otters, which he had been told lived in the area, but he never got to see one. 

The Market had been a success. Jack wasn’t stupid– he knew that the only reason that they had any customers at all was because people had already planned on coming to Larkin’s and happened to wander over to the farmers market. They would have to really bump up their marketing. Maybe Mike, who worked in marketing, would be able to help. Jack made a mental note to get in touch with him. Still, Jack was proud. He and the other vendors had come together, and it was good. And Kath’s story should be coming out, which will get them more attention. 

Then there was Davey. Kissing Davey had been an unexpected, but certainly welcome, surprise. It left Jack more confused than anything, though. Davey kept up this hot and cold act around Jack, and Jack didn’t know how to respond. One minute Davey was complimenting Jack’s art and the next, he was rejecting him. Jack was willing to take the blame for that one. Then Davey was calling him manipulative in the morning and kissing him at night. Jack had no idea what to expect the next time he saw Davey. 

He also had no idea what he  _ wanted _ to expect. Did he want Davey to kiss him again? Yes. That was easy enough to answer. Jack wanted that very much. But did he want anything more than that? They had nothing in common except for their Saturday morning jobs and a shared interest in men. Davey didn’t seem to particularly like him as a person, and Jack had never been the type to chase someone who clearly didn’t want him. If he could just get some kind of clarity on what Davey wanted from him and what Davey thought of him, that would help. They’d have to talk. 

Just before Specs went out to do his morning chores on Sunday, he checked the news. There was a headline on the front page about the local high school, which had just won a football game. There had been a wreck on the interstate just outside of town. There was an interview with the people who ran the fair, which would be setting up soon. There was an interview with Medda Larkin about the haunted trail. He had to dig to find anything about The Market, but Specs eventually found an article, pushed to the side of the website. He clicked it and a few lines loaded but before he could read the article, a notification popped up, covering the screen. It said that to read the article, he would have to subscribe to the paper. 

_ “anyone got a sub to the paper?” _ He wrote in their group chat.

Albert responded first. “ _ nope _ .”

“ _ I’m not 60 _ ,” Blink wrote. “ _ So no. _ ”

There were more people saying that they didn’t have a newspaper subscription until finally, Sarah responded. “ _ My parents do. Here’s the article. It’s buried pretty deep in the paper _ .” She attached a photo of a physical newspaper with the article squeezed into a corner. It was hardly big enough to read.

“ _ They paywalled me! _ ” Kath wrote in the group message an hour later. “ _ The paper knows most of your clients are younger, and only old people subscribe to the paper. _ ” 

“ _ Anyone want brunch? _ ” Crutchie wrote. “ _ I’m going to Bo’s. We can talk there _ .” 

Bo’s was primarily a breakfast restaurant, but they specialized in a Southern-style brunch. Mush was one of the head chefs and ran the food truck, but he was in the restaurant on Sunday morning. The kitchen was behind a long bar, so Mush was able to lean across the table to talk to the people there. 

Jack showed up with Crutchie, Spot and Davey came together, Kath gave Race a ride, and Specs brought Romeo and Albert. Blink, York the florist, and Elmer the beekeeper wandered in late. They managed to make it just before the after-church rush, and claimed a cluster of tables near the bar. “Y’all better order something,” Mush said. “Since you’re taking up all the church ladys’ space.”

Davey ended up at a table with Spot, Jack, Blink, and Crutchie, who sat at the end of the table in his wheelchair. He was directly across from Jack and the two of them very purposefully avoided eye contact. On Mush’s order, they all ordered food. Bo’s was cheap and served massive portions. 

“So, what happened, Kath?” Jack asked, leaning across Blink toward her table. 

Kath rolled her eyes. “The paper stuck my article behind a paywall. They do that sometimes with news they don’t really want reported.” 

“That seems like a violation of freedom of press,” Davey said. 

“You’d think that. But I was still able to publish it. Just… no one will see it.”

“Except old people,” Race pointed out. 

“Except old people,” Kath agreed.

“Can we just republish the article somewhere else?” Jack asked. “I read it from Sarah’s picture– it was really good.”

“No. The paper owns the story.”

“But why would the paper want to cover your article up?” Blink asked. 

“Don’t you know who owns the paper?” Race said. “Joe Pulitzer. You know. Same guy who runs the Bear Creek Market.” 

“He owns this particular branch of the paper,” Kath amended. “The company’s based out of Charlotte but he’s got the western North Carolina segment.”

“That seems like a conflict of interest,” Crutchie said. 

“It’s just business.” Kath said it dryly, like she was reciting something that she had heard many times already.

“What if we start publishing stuff about The Market somewhere else,” Jack suggested. “You still write the articles, we just don’t send them to the paper.” 

“I’d probably get fired.” 

“You could use a pseudonym,” Specs suggested. 

Kath nodded slowly. “That could work. Potentially.” She groaned. “I’m just so  _ mad _ . I put a lot of work into this article. It’s  _ good _ .”

“Why don’t you just share it?” Davey asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“Just like… take a clipping from the paper and stick it up all over the place.”

“What, like… make copies?” Spot asked. “You could use the school copier.” 

“No, I can’t. We get limited copies per year. I’m already running low and having to print shit on half sheets.”

“Gotta love the public school system,” Jack said. “Does anyone have access to a copier?” 

“I have a printer,” Crutchie offered. Jack made a face. 

“Vape World’s got one,” Race said.

“Thank you, Vape World,” Kath replied. She was smiling now. 

“We’ll post it up all over the place,” Jack said. “Businesses, parks, maybe mailboxes.” 

“Social media,” Romeo said. 

“Everywhere. Race, how fast can you get copies made?” 

“It’s the Lord’s day,” Race said lazily. “So we’re not open. And I don’t go in on my day off. But I could do it tomorrow.”

“Alright. Game plan.” Jack had an intense expression. “Everyone share the text of the article on whatever socials you use today. Then tomorrow, run by Vape World when you get a chance to get a stack of articles.”

“Vape World saves the day, as always,” Albert joked.

“Hey!” Mush called across the bar. He was stacking plates on a large serving platter. “Come get your shit. There’s too many of y’all.”

“That’s not very good customer service,” Blink said. 

“I don’t care.” 

“Hold on, let me write a Yelp review real quick. ‘Cook guy cussed us out, made us work, and refused to serve us. Two stars.’”

“I am not afraid to drop these pumpkin pancakes right in the trash.”


	13. Cleaning Out the Closet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kath comes over to help Sarah with her closet and Jack and Davey finally talk.

“Can we talk?” Jack asked. The meeting (and breakfast) had just adjourned and the group was heading out. 

“Uh, now?” Davey asked. “I have to get Spot home.”

“Not right now. Just… today sometime? You can come by my apartment. I’m working on commissions all day so I’ll be home.” 

“Yeah,” Davey said. “Yeah, sure.”

“Just come by whenever you’ve got some free time.”

Kath’s phone vibrated as they were eating. There was a text from Sarah. “ _ What size pants/ dress do you wear? _ ” 

Normally, Kath would hate a question like that. She’d obfuscate or avoid the question, or sometimes just lie. She knew that Sarah was probably around her size, though, and didn’t feel weird about responding honestly. “ _ Usually around a 16. Why? _ ”

“ _ My closet desperately needs to be cleaned out. If you give me a hand, you can have first dibs on anything I don’t keep _ .”

Now,  _ that _ was interesting. Kath liked fashion, but she rarely shopped for herself. Going into stores was uncomfortable and inconvenient. Bear Creek had an extremely limited selection for clothes, and most of the stores carried very little that was her size. Kath normally just stuck to basics. Sarah, though, was good at fashion. She put together bold, interesting outfits. When Kath saw her in a crop top at a barbecue over the summer, she spent hours online shopping afterwards after realizing that a girl her size could wear a crop top and look as fantastic in it as Sarah had. “ _ I’m there _ ,” Kath responded.

Technically, Sarah lived just outside of Bear Creek. The town was in a valley, but her house was on the way back up the mountain. It was a small cabin with a shed almost as big as the house in the backyard. The walls were made of a dark, weathered wood plank and a stone walkway led from the dirt parking area to the front door. Kath knocked. She could hear a voice inside call “Come on in!” 

Inside, the house was clearly the home of an artist. The shelves were filled with Sarah’s signature green and blue pottery. There were little sculptures hanging from the walls and resting on tables. There were Christmas lights scattered sporadically throughout. In the living room, a homemade quilt was spread over the back of a couch with a cross stitched throw pillow. In a cutesy script, it said  _ FUCK THIS _ . “I’m back here!” 

Kath followed Sarah’s voice to her bedroom, where she was sitting on the edge of the bed. Her leg was in the intense-looking cast that it had been in when Kath saw her the day before. The bedroom walls were covered in photos, most of which were taped up. A few framed ones were scattered among the others. One of Sarah, Davey, and Les at a lake. One of Sarah in a graduation cap with a middle aged couple, who Kath assumed were her parents. One of Sarah as a much younger girl, probably around middle school age, hugging an old dog– a mutt, by the looks of it. There were piles of clothes on the bed already. “Hey,” Kath said.

“Hi! Thank you so much. I’m having trouble pulling stuff out of the closet. I’m not really supposed to be up walking around. It took ages for me to convince my mom to let me come home for the day.”

“You’ve been staying with your parents, right?”

“Yeah.” Sarah sighed. “I love my family. But I moved out for a reason and if Les ‘borrows’ my phone charger without asking one more time, I’m going to kill him.”

“Doesn’t he have his own charger?” 

“My parents are trying this thing where he has to leave his charger in the kitchen so he can’t use his phone after bedtime. He was staying up  _ literally _ all night playing some game for a while there.”

“Yikes.” 

“Do you have siblings?” Sarah asked. 

“Nah, only child.”

“I’d say you’re lucky, but… I don’t know. I like not being an only child.”

“I always wanted to be a twin,” Kath said. “But of course, the minute you’re born, it’s a bit late for that.” 

“Maybe you’re the result of a parent trap situation. And your real mom or dad is out there somewhere with your twin.” 

Kath almost said something about her real father, but decided against it. “Maybe! Anyway, do you just need me to pull stuff out of the closet?” 

“Yeah,” Sarah replied. “And then we’ll just go through it here. A few ground rules: anything size fourteen and under goes. I need to stop hoarding clothes just because I  _ might _ fit into them again someday. Anything with a noticeable hole goes. Aside from that, we’ll just look one at a time. And like I said, you can have anything you like that I’m not keeping.”

They worked for a while, making piles of clothes. There was a keep pile, a donation pile, a ‘maybes’ pile, and a pile for Kath. Sarah had a  _ lot _ of clothes, and they didn’t fit in her closet at all. She decided to get rid of a lot of them, and Kath was looking forward to taking her new finds home. 

Kath held up a dress. It was a knee length shift, black with gold accents. She checked the tag. “Size fourteen. Say goodbye.” 

Sarah looked up. “Oh,  _ no _ . I loved that dress.”

“It  _ is _ really nice,” Kath said. “But no hoarding.” That had become their mantra. Every time Sarah waffled over whether or not she would keep something, they repeated it.  _ No hoarding _ . 

“It runs a little big,” Sarah said.

“No. No excuses. No hoarding.” 

“I’m not making excuses! I’m just saying if you want it, you can have it!”

“I can’t usually wear a fourteen.” 

Sarah shrugged. “Want to try it on?” 

Kath turned the dress around to look at it from the front. It really was nice. “Okay. I’ll try it.” 

“The bathroom’s on the right there,” Sarah said, pointing toward an open door near the bedroom. 

Kath went and changed and came out after a minute, straightening the dress. Sarah was sorting through a stack of leggings. “That looks so good!” Sarah said, excited. 

“I don’t know,” Kath said as she tugged around the fabric around her stomach. “I think it’s a bit tight.” 

“Yeah, it is, and that’s a  _ good  _ thing. Also, the gold looks really good with your hair.”

“Alright, well… okay.” Kath looked at the mirror again and smiled. “Maybe I will take it.”

“Please do. Give that dress a home for me.” 

Davey was stalling. When he drove Spot home after breakfast at Bo’s, he locked himself in his room to grade papers. His students had a test the week before and Davey always liked to get grades back quickly. The tests were stacked by class period and Davey took them one at a time, going through the answer key. His students had done well. Most of the grades were A’s and B’s, with a couple of lower grades. For most of the students who hadn’t done well, Davey wasn’t surprised. These were kids who consistently didn’t pay attention in his class. 

One was a surprise. A girl named Maddy had gotten a D. Maddy was consistently one of the best students in the class. She had been unusually withdrawn lately, and Davey wondered, not for the first time, if there was something going on in her personal life. Every now and then, a kid would go through their first breakup or fail a bunch of tests after finding out that their parents were getting divorced. The school policy was to allow one test re-take, so Davey would make sure to mention that to Maddy. 

When all of the tests were graded, he couldn’t stall anymore. Davey threw on a sweater and a pair of shoes and went out. He remembered where Jack’s apartment was– it was one of the only wheelchair-accessible units in the complex. Jack’s neighbor had decorated their front stoop for fall. There was a pumpkin outside and a wreath made up of artificial fall foliage on the door. Davey made a mental note to decorate a bit when he got a chance, and then knocked on the door. 

Jack answered after a minute. He was wearing an apron with streaks of paint crisscrossing the chest and had a brace on one wrist. “Hey!” Jack said, stepping aside so Davey could come in. “I didn’t think you were going to make it.” 

“I said I’d come,” Davey told him. 

“Yeah, but it’s been a while. I figured you changed your mind.” 

“I was just doing some grading.”

“Oh, gotcha. You want anything to drink? I have lemonade, Dr. Pepper, water, tea…” 

“Uh, I’ll take a lemonade.” 

Jack went to the kitchen and started pouring lemonade from a pitcher into two glasses. Davey noticed that the countertops seemed a bit shorter than the ones in his apartment. It was probably designed that way for better accessibility, he realized. Jack came back and handed a glass to Davey. “What are you working on?” Davey asked, gesturing to the apron. 

Jack looked down at himself. “I totally forgot I was wearing this. Step into my studio, and I’ll show you.” He led Davey back to his bedroom, where the easel that had been shoved into a corner the last time Davey had been there was on full display. There was a half-finished portrait of a smiling couple on the easel. They were cheek to cheek, painted in bright, vivid colors. The unfinished sections were sketched out lightly in pencil. In the corner of the portrait, Jack had paper clipped a reference photo of the two. There was a drying rack set up to the side and Davey could see a few watercolor paintings of houses drying off. “I normally work on commissions on weekends,” Jack said. 

“This is really nice,” Davey said, gesturing to the portrait. “They look happy.” 

“God, I would hope so. Imagine if they looked miserable. ‘Here’s your commission. Happy anniversary. Sorry your girlfriend looks like she wants to die.’”

“That  _ would _ be unfortunate.”

Jack took the apron off and hung it on a hook on the wall by the drying rack. Underneath, he had on a long sleeved shirt with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. Tattoos poked out from beneath the cuffs and Davey wished that he could really examine them closely. “I wanted to talk,” Jack said. “About last night.” 

“Sorry about that,” Davey replied quickly. “I was kind of drunk and acting stupid.” 

“It’s okay. I didn’t mind. I just… don’t get you.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean…” Jack hesitated for a moment. “One minute you act like you don’t even like me, and the next you’re kissing me in a bar.” 

“I don’t not like you.” 

“That’s a double negative,” Jack pointed out. 

“I know. I just mean… I don’t think I know how to act around you.” 

“Why not?” 

“Well,” Davey said. “I don’t really know you. I know at least part of you is attracted to me, since you tried to kiss me that one night.” 

“By that logic, you just admitted that you’re attracted to me.”

Davey looked resolutely at the floor. There was a slightly orange stain on the carpet. “I don’t really know how to feel that way about someone anymore,” he admitted. 

“You don’t not like me,” Jack said slowly.

“Right.” 

“Can you just explain why… last night… if you don’t know how to feel attraction to people anymore? I’m just saying, it kind of seemed like you  _ did _ .” 

“It’s something my roommate said,” Davey explained. “He kept telling me to get a rebound. You know, I told you I got dumped a while ago. And I don’t know… I was having fun last night and it seemed like the best move at a time.” 

Jack was silent for a moment. He started straightening paintbrushes. “I don’t want to be a rebound,” he said.

“I know. It’s shitty. I’m sorry.” 

“Hang on, I wasn’t done. I don’t want to be a rebound, but I do think there’s something to be said for moving on from a bad breakup.” 

“Yeah?” Davey asked. 

“Yeah,” Jack replied. “It’s healthy. You have to get out there sometime. Hear me out. You don’t not like me.” 

“Where are you going with this?”  
“I’d tell you if you let me talk. You don’t not like me,” Jack repeated. “I don’t really know you, but I’m… interested in you. Go on a date with me.” 

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Davey said quickly.

“One date. It doesn’t mean anything. I’m not asking to be your boyfriend. I’m not asking to be a rebound. We don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with. If we don’t both have fun, we forget about it. If it  _ is _ fun, we do it again.” 

“I don’t know…” 

“Davey,” Jack said firmly. “This is normal. This isn’t rebounding, it’s just getting back out there. It’s  _ good _ for you. Come on. One date.” 

Davey thought for a moment. He thought about the feeling of Jack’s lips against his, the covered tattoos, the dark, geometric art. He thought of Ben’s Instagram story.  _ Date night. He likes it when I cook for him _ . “One date,” he finally agreed.


	14. The Higgins Family Empire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spot makes a startling discovery about Race.

The last time the Vape World copier worked hard was when Albert’s dog got out in 2018. He and Race covered every inch of Bear Creek in flyers, looking for Lamb. As it turned out, Lamb had dug a hole under the fence into the neighbor’s yard and couldn’t figure out how to get back out. She didn’t realize that if she fit through a hole going in, she would probably fit going out. The neighbor found her when he got home from work, but there was about five hours of sheer panic as Race and Albert searched the town together. 

Now, there were hundreds of copies of Kath’s article being printed. Race had already had to refill the paper once, and the machine had just given another low paper warning. He stacked the finished copies neatly on a table by the copier and took a picture of the articles, which he sent out to The Market group chat. “ _ Come get em. _ ” 

All day, Race had farmers market vendors coming into Vape World for a stack of pages. They had each planned where to put them. Davey was putting a bunch up around the staff areas at school. Romeo was giving them out to customers at Larkin’s. Specs was going to slip one into every basket of apples he sold. Mush and Blink promised to wander around the small downtown area, stapling them to telephone poles. Everywhere they could think of in Bear Creek was covered.

Around three o’clock, Spot showed up. The bell over the door jingled as he came in. Spot looked around the store for a minute. There were no other customers. The CBD section of the shop had begun to take over the store, and Race had been putting as little emphasis on vaping as was possible for a store called Vape World. “It smells like pumpkins in here,” Spot said, instead of a greeting. 

Race held up a candle that he had burning behind the register. It was in a mason jar and had the label of Spot’s candle company on it. “Only the best.” 

“Huh,” Spot said. “I thought it was a high quality scent. So, this is Vape World, huh?”

Race spread his arms wide after returning the candle to its place. “Welcome to my kingdom. You here for flyers?” 

“No. I’ve decided that in today’s climate, I’m going to take up vaping as a hobby. Do you have any cotton candy flavored ones? Yes, I’m here for flyers.”

“You’ll have to give me a minute. Jack just came by and cleared me out. I need to run off a few more.” 

Race ducked into the back room and Spot stood around by the counter, waiting. He spent some time looking through products, but there were none that he was really interested in. Race was taking longer than he expected, and Spot got bored, so he ducked his head back through the door to the back room. 

It was larger than expected. Just inside the door, there were a few boxes of products, a few displays, and a broken cabinet. There was a small desk set up in an office area. Just to the left, there was another doorway. It was more of an arch, with an actual beaded curtain handing down. He could make out Race moving around past the curtain with the sounds of a copier whirring, so Spot pushed through the curtain. 

It was probably a break room at some point. There was a small kitchen table, old refrigerator, and stovetop. The copier was shoved into a corner. When Race heard the curtain part, he spun around, looking oddly guilty. His eyes flicked to the other corner, where there was a ratty old couch. It looked like a pull-out sofa, and there were a few pillows and blankets folded on top. A stack of clothes was on a chair, and there were plastic storage tubs stacked along the walls. A bathroom door was propped open and Spot could see a towel hanging over the wall of a cheap-looking shower. 

Spot took a moment to put two and two together. The bedding. The clothes. The towel. Race’s guilty expression. “Race…” he said slowly. “Do you  _ live _ here?” 

Race bit his lip. “Uh, yeah,” he replied. “You know… for now.” 

“What the fuck?”

The copier stopped spitting out pages and the silence it left behind was heavy. “I just… I don’t have a whole lot of money. I couldn’t afford where I was living anymore, so I’m just staying here until I get another place.” 

“How long have you been living here?” 

“Since… May? Yeah. May.” 

“Holy shit, Race. Why didn’t you  _ tell  _ me?”

Race ran a hand through his hair. “I already felt like enough of a loser telling you I manage a vape shop. It’s even worse if I have to say I  _ live  _ in the vape shop.”

“Why don’t you get a roommate and move into the Reserve or something? It’s not that expensive.” 

“I just… oh, it’s really hard to explain.” 

Spot pulled a plastic chair away from the table and sat down. “Try.” 

“You’re not from here,” Race said. 

“My aunt is.” 

“Yeah, but  _ you’re _ not. I don’t think you’ve really noticed. I’m a Higgins.” 

“I know your last name.” 

“Yeah, but you don’t know what it  _ means _ . Higgins Street. Higgins Academy. Higgins Park. Higgins Funeral Home. Higgins Manufacturing. Higgins Automotive.” 

They were all names of places and businesses around town. Everywhere you looked, the Higgins name was slapped on something. “I just figured that’s a common name.” 

“How many Higginses do you know?” Race asked dryly. 

“Not that many, I guess. That still doesn’t explain why you’re living here.” 

“I know, I’m not done.” Race took a seat at the table and propped his elbow on the table, holding his chin in his hand. “My family owns half the town. We were some of the first people to settle here. You know that big house on the mountain that you can see from downtown? The white one? That’s my parents’ house. They make jokes about being able to look down on the people in Bear Creek. Anyway, I’m gay.” 

Spot wanted to make a joke. He wanted to say that he had noticed, or that it was obvious, but it was clear from Race’s expression that he wasn’t in the mood for jokes. 

“My parents didn’t like that. They were going to leave the majority share of the companies and money to me, but they transferred it to my sister, because she’d be able to carry on the family line.” Race shrugged. “And you know, that was fine. I didn’t really want to run things, anyway. Then I dropped out of high school.” 

“I didn’t know that.” 

“Yeah. I wasn’t good at school. I got my GED, though. Anyway, that was sort of the last straw, you know? My parents decided that I was out of control and cut me off. I’ve been living off a trust fund from my grandfather but used it up on rent. I had this  _ really _ nice place for a while there. Which was… stupid. It cost way too much. So I had to move out, and here I am.”

“Fuck, man,” Spot said. “Do your parents know you’re living here?” 

“No! I don’t really talk to them anymore. I talk to Rachel some– my sister– but she doesn’t know about this. I swear, Spot, I don’t want you to feel bad for me or think I’m a total loser. I’m fine.”

Spot took a minute to allow himself to really look at Race while Race was distracted, staring off into space toward the fridge. His hair was messy and a little too long. Freckles dotted his cheeks. He nails were bitten short, and there was a scar across the back of one hand. Spot hooked his foot around one leg of Race’s chair and pulled it so that Race was only about a foot away. 

When the chair moved, Race jumped slightly and looked around at Spot, then smiled. They had been flirting openly for months. Every time they planned to get together, they both knew that something was going to happen between the two of them, but something always came up. In the back room of Vape World, Spot leaned over, and for the first time, pressed his lips to Race’s.

Spot went home a few hours later with a smile on his face. He opened the door, yelling “Honey, I’m home,” to find Davey grading papers in the kitchen. Something was cooking in the oven and it smelled fantastic. 

“Hi, dear,” Davey said, barely looking up from his papers. “Good day?” 

“Fantastic. Finally kissed Race.” 

_ That _ got Davey to look up. “Had that not happened already? I was under the impression that you two have been hooking up for weeks now.” 

“Nope. Shit always came up. Anyway,  _ now _ it’s happened. What’s for dinner?” 

“Manicotti,” Davey replied. 

“I didn’t know you knew how to make that.” 

“I don’t. Stouffer’s does.”

Spot took a seat across from Davey. “Need some help?” he asked. Davey passed a stack of quizzes and an answer key across the table, along with a red pen. For easy assignments with clear answers, he enlisted Spot’s help with grading a lot. “Did you know Race was rich?” 

“Yeah,” Davey said, like it was obvious.

“ _ How _ ?” 

“Everyone knows. He’s a Higgins. Besides, we went to school together. We weren’t in the same grade, but his sister was in my class. Rachel invited me to her birthday party once in elementary school, and it was insane. Big pool, bouncy house, professional catering… Did you  _ not _ know?” 

“No!” Spot added a graded quiz to the stack. “Fuckin’ locals. Y’all act like you know everything.” 

“I  _ do _ know everything.” 

They graded in silence for a while but with two of them working, it didn’t take long for the quizzes to be finished. “Thank you,” Davey said as he paper clipped the assignments by class period. 

“No problem. Hey, speaking of gay shit…” 

“No one was speaking of gay shit,” Davey pointed out. 

“We were before you distracted me with a science quiz. Anyway, speaking of gay shit, what ever happened with Jack? Did you talk?”

“Yeah. We’re going on a date. Well, sort of a date. It’s more of an initial trial period.” 

“An ‘initial trial period’?” 

“Yeah. Like, we’re planning on going out and if it doesn’t work out, we won’t do it again.” 

Spot looked incredulous. “Dave. That’s just a date. That’s literally just what a first date is.” 

“It’s more casual than that.” 

“When’s the last time you went on a first date?”

“Uh…” Davey did a bit of math. “Four years ago?” 

“First dates  _ are  _ casual. You’ve just forgotten how they work.” 

When Davey went back to his room after a plate full of manicotti, he didn’t know what to do with himself. He didn’t often have free time in the evenings. Normally, he had to spend time making lesson plans and grading papers, but he had somehow gotten ahead of the work and had nothing left to do until he got some more assignments back. He opened his laptop and almost went to check in on Ben on social media, but instead, opened YouTube. 

Davey entertained himself by catching up on his YouTube subscriptions for a while, doing whatever he could not to think about Ben. He wasn’t entirely sure, but he thought it may have been getting easier. 

Just before he was about to go to sleep, Davey got a text from Jack. “ _ we still on for thurs?” _

“ _ Yes _ ,” Davey replied. “ _ What did you have planned? _ ”

“ _ secret. i need you to rate the following things from 1-5. 1 is bad and 5 is dope. animals. food. movies. music. heights. tattoos. running.”  _

As Davey read the message, his anxiety spiked. He had no idea what Jack had planned, but his options sounded a bit nightmarish. “ _ Animals: 5. _ ” He typed. 

“ _ Food: 3.  _

_ “Movies (in general): 4.  _

_ “Movies (as a date): 2.  _

_ “Music (in general): 3.  _

_ “Music (live): 1.  _

_ “Heights: 0.  _

_ “Tattoos (on me): 2.  _

_ “Tattoos (on other people): 5.  _

_ “Running: 1. _ ” 

“ _ ah,”  _ Jack wrote. “ _ so tattoos arent totaly out. good to know. cant wait for our trial period. _ ”


	15. Initial Trial Period

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack and Davey go on an initial trial period– also known as their first date.

By Thursday afternoon, Davey had convinced himself that going on a date– or an initial trial period– with Jack was a bad idea. By Thursday evening, he was dreading it. Spot was out with Race, so Davey didn’t have anyone to hype him up. He changed his outfit four times. Once, into jeans and a t-shirt, to show how casual he thought this all was. Then, to dress pants and a button down, to show that he understood the gravity of the situation. After another half hour of waffling, he finally settled on a nicer pair of jeans, a plain t-shirt, and his favorite cardigan. It was a thick, chunky knit with leather patches at the elbows.

There had been some discussion about whether Jack should pick Davey up. Davey argued that it would be more casual if they just met wherever Jack picked for the date. Jack argued that they lived in the same apartment complex and if they rode separately, Davey would have the destruction of the environment on his conscience. Jack won and when Davey stepped out of his apartment at six thirty, Jack’s car was just outside, ready to go. 

“Hey,” Jack said as Davey got into the car. It was a boxy car that Davey didn’t know the make of. There was a pack of gum, a pair of sunglasses, a purple crayon, and three firecrackers in a cubby on the passenger side. 

“Hi,” Davey said. “What’s with the firecrackers?”

“Just in case.” Jack had on jeans, a t-shirt, and a denim jacket. Davey had never felt like he could pull off the denim on denim look, but Jack made it look effortless.

“Where are we going?” 

“So impatient,” Jack laughed. “It’s about the journey sometimes. I mean, not this time. This time is definitely about the destination, but still.” 

They made small talk during the drive. Every time Davey started a more interesting conversation, Jack stopped him. “The date hasn’t started yet,” he’d say. “This is the pre-date. Don’t want to waste all of your good topics now.” 

They turned down a road that led out of town, toward a lot of the farms. Houses became more spread out, with crops growing in between. They passed one cow pasture after another before turning onto a steep, gravel road. “We’re going to Lost Shoe?” Davey asked. “Aren’t they closed by now?”

“I have friends in high places,” Jack said. 

“So… Specs.” 

“Yeah.” The gate to Lost Shoe Orchard was open, but there was a closed sign hanging on one gate post. Jack ignored the sign and drove on through. “They’ve got a really good view. Specs lets me come paint sometimes after closing.” Lost Shoe’s parking lot was empty, except for a medium-size pickup truck. They parked, and Davey followed Jack inside. 

The main room of the shop front was dedicated to barrels and barrels of apples. Jars of honey, jam, and apple butter lined the shelves and a glass display case, which normally held apple-based baked goods like fritters, sat empty. Specs was sitting at the front counter, typing on a laptop. “This is cute,” he said, nodding toward Jack and Davey. 

“Aren’t we?” Jack asked. “Can we just take a basket?”

Specs gestured vaguely toward a stack of apple baskets. “I’m working on some stuff, so just drop by to pay when you’re done. I’ll be up late.” 

“What’s good right now?” 

Specs was focused on his laptop again. He answered robotically. “The Galas are on the way out, but there’s still a few left. You’ll probably have to search for those. Golden Delicious, Granny Smith… the Fujis are really good right now. There’s a full list over there.” He pointed at a blackboard on the wall near the baskets.

“Thanks!” Jack grabbed a basket and walked back outside toward the orchard with Davey. “This alright?” 

“Yeah,” Davey said. “I love apples.”

“Good!”

“Is this the date now?” Davey asked. “Can we talk about more than the weather now?” 

“The weather  _ is _ lovely right now, but yes. Welcome to your initial trial period.” They reached the entrance of the orchard. Hand-painted wooden signs pointed down rows to different varieties of apples. “Do you have a favorite?” 

“Normally, Galas. But Fuji sounds good.”

“Fuji, it is,” Jack said. He turned down the Fuji row. 

“How do you know Specs?” Davey asked. 

“Oh, I’ve known him forever. We were on the same soccer team as kids.” 

“Wait, but… I didn’t think you were from here?” 

Jack cocked an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“We’re the same age, right?” 

“Yeah.” 

“But I don’t remember you from school,” Davey said. Normally, he at least recognized people in his age group from school. “Did you go somewhere else?” 

“I went to Higgins,” Jack replied. He reached up and plucked an apple from a tree, dropping it into the basket. 

Bear Creek was part of a larger school district, but most of the kids in town went to either Bear Creek Elementary or Brook Waters Elementary, then moved up to Bear Creek Middle, where Davey worked, followed by Bear Creek High. There was another school, Higgins Academy, but it was for students with severe learning disabilities. “Oh, I didn’t realize that.” 

“Is that a problem?” Jack asked. 

“No. Higgins is a good school. I actually did a semester of student teaching there.” Davey reached for an apple but pulled his hand away when he saw a large rotten spot. Instead, he grabbed an apple right next to it. “It’s definitely none of my business, so don’t feel like you have to answer, but as a teacher, I’m curious. What did you go there for?” 

“I don’t mind. ADHD and dyslexia. Ya boy doesn’t know how to read. Or do math. Or pay attention.” 

“You know how to read.” 

“Technically,” Jack said with a shrug. “But I’m not very good at it. I went to Brook Waters until second grade before they transferred me.” Every now and then, a kid would get transferred to Higgins. It normally happened in elementary school and sometimes, they would transfer back to the public school as they got older. There was a stigma against Higgins among many of the students and, unfortunately, some of the teachers. Davey remembered being in school and hearing other kids make jokes about getting sent to Higgins for being stupid. 

“I really liked student teaching there,” Davey said. “The class sizes are a dream. I’ve got at least thirty kids in all of my classes, normally. My third period class doesn’t have enough desks so kids sit on the back counters.” 

“How come you didn’t end up teaching there for real, then?” 

“My degree was just regular middle grade education. You have to have more special education training to teach at Higgins, normally.” 

“Why’d you want to teach?” 

Davey thought about it for a moment. “Did you ever have a teacher that  _ really _ helped you?” 

“My art teacher,” Jack replied automatically. 

“See, you didn’t even have to think about it. Mine was my seventh grade science teacher.”

“What was so good about her?” 

“He,” Davey corrected. “He was my first male teacher. And he was gay. I remember seeing him at a pride demonstration with his boyfriend or husband, or whatever, downtown once. At the time, I was sort of figuring out the whole sexuality thing–” 

“In seventh grade? That’s early.” 

“Yeah, I know. I was a bit of an early bloomer. But anyway, he was just really  _ normal _ , you know? Like, he came to class, he taught, he went home. He wasn’t scary or  _ perverse _ or anything. And now it’s like, I get it more. You can be gay however you want, right? I mean, you can be loud and covered in rainbows or quiet and it’s all fine. But at the time, I had only ever seen the loud and covered in rainbows stuff, and that kind of freaked me out. That’s not my style and I didn’t like feeling like I had to do that. And Mr. Boehmer just seemed so normal, and just being around him and seeing him being an ordinary science teacher just made me feel a lot… I don’t know. Safer, I guess, about being gay. Plus, he was just a really good teacher.”

“That makes a lot of sense,” Jack said. “Are you out at school?” 

Davey sighed. “It’s sort of complicated. Technically, teachers aren’t supposed to talk about their sexuality or personal lives, you know? But you get straight teachers talking about their spouses all the time. The teacher across the hall has her husband bring her lunch at least once a week and everyone knows about him. I used to have a picture of my boyfriend and I on my desk, but I had to take it down, because… you know.”

“The school made you take it down?” 

“No. He broke up with me.”

Jack stopped dead in his tracks and made an X with his arm. “No ex-boyfriend talk on a date. I realize that I brought it up, so my bad. Carry on, minus the asshole.” 

Davey rolled his eyes. “Anyway, now I just have a few little rainbow things on my desk.” 

“I thought you said rainbows weren’t your style.” 

“I don’t mind them,” Davey said. “Although, they’re not, really. But I figured that maybe some kid like me will see them and feel a little better about themselves, you know? And if not, it’s not hurting anything.”

“That’s really sweet,” Jack said. “I bet you’re a pretty popular teacher.” 

“Ha,” Davey laughed sarcastically. “No. I’m pretty boring.” 

“ _ What _ ? Why?”

“Because boring teachers don’t get in trouble. It’s always the ‘super fun’ teachers that end up on the news.” 

Jack grabbed Davey’s arm. “Davey. I know I don’t know you that well, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t do anything bad, even if you weren’t a boring teacher.” 

“Probably not,” Davey said. “But I’m okay with being boring. I don’t like a whole lot of attention.” 

Jack pulled another apple down from the trees. As they walked, they had been slowly filling the basket. The sun was beginning to set and in the distance, they could see it going down over the mountains. Jack took a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket and carved an apple slice out, passing it to Davey, before cutting one for himself. As they talked, they shared the apple. It was crisp and sweet, at perfect ripeness. 

“So, you hate ziplining,” Davey said as they switched over to the Golden Delicious row. 

“True.” 

“Why not do something with your art? Other than The Market, I mean.” 

“Well, I do commissions,” Jack reminded him. “But art-based jobs are hard to get. A lot of them are graphic design, and that’s not really my thing. Actually, I might do tattoos.”

“Wait, seriously?” 

“Yeah. Blink just finished up his apprenticeship, and his mentor’s thinking about taking on a new apprentice. I’m trying to get that spot.” 

“That would be… awesome, actually.” Davey thought back to the tattoos lining Jack’s arms. He couldn’t see them beyond the denim jacket. “How do you get an apprenticeship?” 

“Well, it’ll help because I know the artist who would be mentoring me. I always go to his shop, and I’ve got a bunch by him. And Blink’s already said he’ll put in a good word for me. I just need to pull together a portfolio, which I’ve been working on whenever I have any free time.”

“A tattoo portfolio?” 

“No,” Jack laughed. “Just an art portfolio. Don’t worry, I’m not going around doing basement tattoos on people.” He hesitated. “Well, not  _ anymore _ .” 

“Not anymore? That’s ominous.” 

Jack stopped. He put a hand on one of Davey’s shoulders to balance and lifted one leg, pulling his pants leg up. There were a few faded outlines of tattoos on his ankle. One was a lightning bolt, one was a smiley face, and one was an ‘S’ shape that Davey remembered everyone doodling back in elementary school. They were all crooked, with parts that had almost completely faded away. The smiley face had one eye that was significantly larger than the other. “I got really into stick and pokes back in high school.” 

“Yikes.” 

“Yep! I think they’re funny now, but they’re definitely  _ not _ my best work. Hey, maybe if you play your cards right, I’ll give you one. You did say that tattoos weren’t totally out of the question.” 

“Consider them out of the question now,” Davey said.

They reached the end of the row of Golden Delicious apples, and the basket was full. Jack took a seat on a hay bale and Davey joined him. In front of them, the last of the sunset was just disappearing behind the mountains. It was bright orange and pink, and bathed them both in a golden light. “It’s gorgeous out here,” Jack said quietly. 

“Yeah,” Davey agreed. “It really is.” 

The two of them sat in silence for a while, sharing another apple, as the sun set. When it was finished, Jack tossed the apple core, and it tumbled down the hill in front of them. Davey snuck a glance at Jack’s face. In profile, the shadows of his face stood out in contrast to the highlights. The sunset brought out the gold undertones in Jack’s darker skin, and he almost seemed to glow from within. A part of Davey felt guilty for thinking that in that moment, Jack was beautiful. A part of him felt like that word– “beautiful”– should be reserved for Ben. But Ben wasn’t here anymore. He went to New Jersey, and he didn’t care enough about Davey to stay with him. Jack was  _ here _ , and he was  _ kind _ , and he was  _ beautiful _ , and it was impossible to deny that. 

Jack turned and Davey looked away quickly, embarrassed for being caught staring. “How’d I do?” Jack asked. 

“What?” 

“For a first date. Did you enjoy yourself enough to extend the initial trial period to a second?” 

Davey nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think I did.”


	16. Building a Path

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Specs and Romeo work on an accessibility plan and Davey is left to run the pottery stand on his own.

The Market was busy on the second Saturday in October. Larkin’s haunted trail and pumpkin patch was in full swing, and the people in town who saw the flyers that Race printed off were intrigued enough to come see what was going on. Bear Creek was a peaceful town, so whenever there was some kind of drama, the people came out o watch. If a building caught fire, everyone in a three mile radius would come watch. If a car got pulled over, traffic would slow down so rubberneckers could gawk. A feud between Joe Pulitzer and a bunch of his former vendors was enough to bring the people out in droves. 

“Where’s Les?” Jack asked Davey. They hadn’t talked much since their date. Davey was setting up the booth while Sarah, still in a wheelchair, directed. 

“He couldn’t make it today. Some marching band thing.” 

“And I can’t stay long,” Sarah added. “So basically, I’m going to go bankrupt from Davey’s total lack of sales ability.”

“I’m not that bad,” Davey argued. 

“You really, really are.”

Crutchie made his way to Jack’s table then. He was having trouble navigating the loose earth, but he was used to pushing a wheelchair, so he managed to avoid major sinkholes. He passed a travel cup across the table to Jack. “I’m trying a new recipe.” 

Jack took a sip. It was thick and syrupy, and the sour taste of the lemons was almost bitter. Unable to hold back, he made a face. “What did you  _ do _ ?” 

“It’s bad, right?” Crutchie asked. “I got a bottle of pumpkin spice coffee syrup and stirred it in.” 

“Is that why it’s so thick?” 

Crutchie took the cup back. “No, actually. The syrup was really runny when I added it and it thickened up when I stirred. I think there’s some kind of chemical reaction happening. It’s really weird.”

Jack turned to Davey. “You’re a science guy. Why is this lemonade thick?” 

Davey shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. Chemistry isn’t my strong suit.”

“Calling this ‘chemistry’ is very generous of you,” Crutchie said. “Thank you. Hey, Sarah! How’s wheelchair life treating you?”

“Absolutely awful,” Sarah replied. “I don’t know how you do this all the time.” 

“It’s the guns.” Crutchie flexed. His arms were actually quite impressive. “But also, you’re not using a very good chair. It’s fine for short term stuff, but I’d hate my life if I had to use yours all the time. How long do you have to use it?”

“Not sure. I’m using a walker around the house a lot of the time, and I’ve got physical therapy starting soon. This is just a lot easier for going out.” 

“I feel that.”

“Hey, Jack!” 

Jack glanced up to see Romeo jogging down the path toward him. “What’s up, Ro?”

“I’ve been thinking with Specs. We’re gonna try to build a path here. Like, a solid one.” 

“For wheelchairs?” Crutchie asked. 

“Mostly, but also just for, like, getting around easier without getting muddy.”

Jack nodded. “That would be great. But I mean, we don’t really have money for materials.”

“I know,” Romeo said. “I’m thinking maybe we can tear pallets apart. You know, like shipping palettes. A lot of places give those out for free when they’re done with them.”

“Well, hey. If you can make it work, by all means. Is Medda cool with it?” 

“As long as we clean up at the end of the season, she says it’s fine.”

Meanwhile, Specs was walking, heel to toe, measuring the amount of wood that they would need by how many paces long the pathway was. He had always liked building things. At the orchard, Specs was always working on a new shelf, sign, or path. The vision in his mind was basically like a deck, but long and narrow. 

“What are you doing?” Race asked as he passed by. 

Specs held up a finger but didn’t answer. He didn’t want to lose count. When he finally reached the end, he made a note of the steps and came back to Race. “I was measuring. What are  _ you _ doing?”

Race held up a breakfast burrito. “Eating.”

“You know you’ve got burrito sauce all over your face, right?” 

As Race scrambled for a napkin, there was a bark of laughter from across the path. “Stop laughing,” Race snapped at Spot. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

The two of them had been chatting all morning from their respective tables. “Funnier not to,” Spot said. 

Kath arrived around ten, notebook in hand. “You’re early,” Race said. 

“Yeah. The other market was pretty dull today. I managed to scrape together enough for a story on pets visiting the market and left. What’s new here?” 

“Specs and Romeo are trying to make a path.” 

“What kind of path?” 

“The kind that doesn’t make wheelchairs get stuck every few feet.”

“Oh, I think I could work with that. ‘New Market putting more emphasis on accessibility’.” Kath went and found Crutchie to get a few quotes on accessibility, then headed over to Sarah’s booth. She was getting ready to leave, but Davey would be staying. “Hi, Sarah.” 

“Hi!” 

“I’m doing a story this week on how this market is actually putting an emphasis on accessibility, where the Bear Creek Market didn’t. Do you have anything to say about that?” 

“Well, the Bear Creek Market is accessible enough for visitors,” Sarah said. “But the vendor entrances weren’t. You had to go down a bunch of steps to get in the back gates. It’s hard enough when you’re trying to move a bunch of fragile stuff on a hand truck. Nearly impossible in a wheelchair.”

“And how is it better here?” 

“Well, there’s no stairs. But so far, it’s not much better. The ground’s too soft. Like, I can’t push myself across all this. But it sounds like there might be a better solution soon.” Sarah’s phone vibrated. “But for now, I need to get going. My mom just got here.” 

“Want a hand out to the parking lot?” 

“That would be great, actually.” 

Davey pushed Sarah’s wheelchair around to the front of the table and Kath took over, carefully navigating her way down the path. 

“Have you talked to Sarah about Kath?” Jack asked, as soon as they were out of earshot.

“No.” 

“Why  _ not _ ?” 

“Why would I?” Davey countered. 

“Because we’re trying to get them together!”

“ _ We’re _ not trying to do anything. Again, I’m not convinced that Kath likes Sarah.” 

“Why not?” Jack asked again. 

“I told you, I think she likes  _ you _ .” 

“You keep saying that, but there’s no way. Wait…” Jack raised his eyebrows, grinning. “Are you  _ jealous _ ?” 

“No. I just don’t want my sister to get hurt because you’re trying to set her up with someone who isn’t interested.” 

“You’re jealous.” 

“I’m really not.” 

“You want me all for yourself.” 

“Nope.” 

“I was thinking,” Jack said. “We should take turns.”

“Doing what?” Davey asked. 

“Planning dates. I did the last one, you can do the next one, I’ll do the one after that–” 

“Who says there will be a third?” 

“Natural chemistry. And optimism.”

Davey rolled his eyes. “I don’t know about that. But I’m okay with taking turns.”

“You better sweep me off my feet, Davey.” 

“We’ll see.” Davey locked eyes with a customer then. She was a vaguely familiar-looking middle aged woman, and she seemed intent on coming to the pottery stand. “Oh, no.” 

“You got this,” Jack said in an undertone. 

The woman stepped up to the table. “Hi,” Davey said. His voice broke slightly and he cleared his throat. “Were you interested in buying some pottery?” He was pretty sure he sounded like a robot.

“I’m not sure,” the woman mused. “How much is it?” 

“Different things are different prices. They’re all on the sign.” 

Jack coughed, and Davey glanced over to see him shaking his head slightly.

“These mugs are really nice,” he amended. “And they’re a very, uh… reasonable price. Only twenty dollars.” Calling something he was selling a reasonable price felt slimy, and Davey was reminded of the guy who sold him his car.  _ Very reasonable price. You won’t find anything better in town _ .

“Do you make them?” 

“No, my sister does.” Out of the corner of his eye, Davey could see Jack making small hand motions, clearly telling him to keep talking. “She’s really talented. But she was, uh… involved in a bad car accident.” The woman’s expression began to change to one of pity. “She just had to have surgery so I’m covering for her until she’s back on her feet.” Davey studied the woman, trying to figure out how she looked so familiar. After a moment, it clicked. “Ms… Roberts, right?” 

“Robinson, but yes, that’s me!”

“My younger brother used to take piano lessons from you. Les Jacobs?”

“Oh, my gosh, yes! Of course I remember Les.”

“He usually helps me out, but he had a band thing. He’s playing saxophone now.” 

Ms. Robinson smiled widely. “That’s so good to hear. I always say piano lessons are useful even if you don’t plan on continuing with the instrument. It’s good to have a background in music theory.”

Davey and Ms. Robinson talked for a while longer until she agreed to buy a cereal bowl. Davey took some cash and wrapped the bowl up for her, padding it with brown paper before putting it in a bag stamped with Sarah’s logo. As soon as Ms. Robinson was out of the way, Jack spun to face Davey. “Yes!” Jack said, excited. “That was so good. Small,” he clapped his hands. “Town!” He clapped again. “Advantage!” With the third clap, Davey smiled.

That evening, Kath sat alone in her bedroom in front of a computer. Her room was large and half of it had been outfitted as a sort of home office. There was a wide desk with a Mac desktop computer, well-stocked bookshelves, and an office chair that Kath didn’t like to admit the price of. 

The blog was all set up. One of the twins had done the design and setup for it, and all Kath had to do was write a post under a penname and toss it out into the world. She did this every day. All she had to do was write a post. 

Kath stared at the blank Google doc with its blinking cursor. Just one post. An article. A  _ sentence _ would be a good start. Anything. 

There was no way this wouldn’t trace back to her.  _ Nom de plume _ notwithstanding, her father would know exactly who wrote the post. He wouldn’t be able to prove it, but she knew that he would know. There was no way she was going to get into higher branches of the paper if she did this. Kath desperately wanted to be moved off of the fairgrounds beat to something more exciting.

At the same time, there were other papers. Just because Joe’s was the biggest in town didn’t mean that it was the only one. And he was  _ wrong _ . He  _ paywalled _ her just for reporting the news about his competition. 

Kath started typing random words that popped into her head, hoping that something would stick and give her a starting place for the post.  _ Family. Injustice. Censorship. Accessibility. Rich vs. poor. Class inequality. Inequality. Race’s family. Jack. Sarah Jacobs. Accessibility. I have to write about accessibility. Crutchie. Stairs. Mud. They were relegated to a mud pit. David vs. Goliath? Davey Jacobs vs. Goliath? Jack vs. Goliath?  _

_ A young man in a wheelchair does his best to navigate the muddy paths of The Market at Larkin’s farm. He has a cup of lemonade balanced precariously as he tries to avoid getting a wheel stuck in a rut. His business, a successful lemonade stand, is thriving, but he still has to work out of the back of an unrelated food truck because Bear Creek and its total lack of care for the disabled has forced him to adapt. _

Kath would deal with her father later.


	17. To-Do Lists and Taylor Swift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fair is in town and Romeo's schedule is packed. Sarah calls Kath for a favor.

In Bear Creek, there were a few annual events that woke the whole town up. The annual Christmas parade. Larkin’s Lock-in. The Renaissance festival. None of them were as big as the fair. 

When the fair came to town, half of the businesses in Bear Creek closed so their employees could visit and work at the fair. Kids saved their money for months so they could have enough for rides and deep fried food. The Bear Creek Market shrank to a small row of tables within the fairgrounds, of which they were usually the sole occupants. Rides were constructed, booths were wheeled in, tents were erected. 

On Monday, the fair opened for its two week engagement. It was divided by attraction– there was a large tent where magicians, acrobats, and singers performed. The section with rides and games took up most of the fair. There was an area with food, and finally, the agriculture and farming area. Farmers from Bear Creek and surrounding areas bought the very best of their produce and livestock to compete for awards.

Romeo’s schedule was packed during fair weeks. On one hand, he was responsible for organizing their booths. They would be entering a few pumpkins, two of their pigs, and four chickens for competition. One of the pumpkins, he thought, had a real chance of winning a prize. It was probably the best he had ever grown. Romeo had nurtured that pumpkin for its entire life and he felt like he was sending his daughter off to her quinceanera. He got a little teary-eyed when they loaded it up onto the truck. 

On top of the fair, it was Larkin’s busiest time of year. Medda had a personal grudge against the fair, so she always kicked work into overdrive while it was in town to keep customers coming in. Tickets to the haunted trail were half off while the fair was in town but most of all, there was the Lock-in. They had been planning it all year and now they were less than a week away. 

Every year, on a Saturday night during the fair, Medda hosted Larkin’s Lock-in. The farm was open all night for a Halloween all-nighter. She pretended to lock the gates of the farm after sundown (although of course they weren’t really locked) and carried out a full night of entertainment. It was the most popular event of the year, not just for Larkin’s, but for Bear Creek in general. 

As a manager of Larkin’s, Romeo’s to-do list for Monday was out of control. 

_ -Check on pumpkins @ fair _

_ -Deliver more pig food to fair _

_ -Confirm Rocky Horror actors _

_ -Buy fake blood _

_ -Replace batteries in jumping spiders _

_ -Make sure Boots mows paths _

_ -Projector test _

_ -Eat lunch sometime _

_ -Prepare bank deposit _

_ -Pick up palettes  _

_ -Confirm food truck w/ Mush _

_ -Newspaper interview @ 2:00 _

_ -Cover register 2:30-4:00 _

“How’s your day looking?” Medda asked. They had both gotten to work early to get a jump on things.

“Well,” Romeo replied. “You know it’s good when you have to schedule in lunch.” 

“Anything I can help you with?” 

“If you wanted to do the bank deposit, that’d be great. And I have to cover the register for a while this afternoon because Buttons has a doctor’s appointment.”

“I’ll take care of the bank deposit. Can you call in Snitch for the register? She was saying the other day that she needs more hours.”

“Nope,” Romeo said. “She’s got school till three forty-five. Don’t worry about it. I’ll just deal with some of the more admin-y stuff while I’m on register.”

“Make sure you track your hours. We’ll get you some overtime pay.”

“Thanks, Medda.”

“Thank  _ you  _ for being so damn good at your job.”

Bluetooth was a beautiful invention. While he drove down the road to the fair, Romeo was able to call the Rocky Horror group. It was a troupe of college students from Asheville who went around putting on Rocky Horror productions in the area. They had all of their own supplies and even brought little gift bags for the audience so they could throw things and participate. They had to book the troupe six months in advance. 

The pumpkins were already settled in and on display when Romeo arrived. “Hi, Annabel,” he said quietly, running a hand across the pumpkin that he babied for so long. 

“Talking to pumpkins?” a voice said from behind him. 

Specs had wandered up behind Romeo, wearing a Lost Shoe Orchard t-shirt. They both had the orange wristbands given to competitors at the fair. “I had to make sure my daughter was doing alright,” Romeo said. “Did you enter anything?” 

“Yeah, we’re in the apple competition. And my mom’s got some food that she’s entered, but I don’t really know anything about that.” 

“Nice to know that apples aren’t food.”

“Cooked food, dingus,” Specs clarified. “Did I see Porgy with the pigs?” 

“Yeah. Bess is here, too. And some chickens.”

“Porgy, love of my life,” Specs joked. He was a big fan of Larkin’s pigs. “Did you get palettes?” 

Romeo sighed. “It’s on the list. I’ve got a shit ton of stuff to do this week for the fair and lock-in.” 

“I can probably find someone else to help out.” 

“I can handle it,” Romeo said quickly. 

“Bro. You don’t have to do everything on your own. Let people help. I bet Jack and Mush would be cool with it.” 

“Mush is working the food truck all week.” 

“Jack isn’t. I can get in touch with him.” 

“You’re the best,” Romeo said. 

“Obviously.”

“Thank you so much for helping me,” Sarah said as she and Kath set up a pottery table at the fair. Sarah was entering one of the artisan competitions. 

“It’s no problem,” Kath replied. “I’ve just been going around interviewing people all day. It’s nice to take a break.” 

Set-up had to happen during the middle of the day, when Davey and their parents had work, so Sarah had been desperate to find someone to give her a ride and help her carry things. Kath was sort of a hail Mary, but she answered quickly and agreed to come pick Sarah up without any hesitation. 

“Your work is beautiful, by the way,” Kath said, turning a mug over in her hands. There was a subtle green to blue gradient that transitioned flawlessly. 

“Thanks, but it’s got nothing on everyone else’s stuff.” Sarah had been eyeing the entry next to hers all morning. They had made mugs with faces in them. Each one was different, and they were all either funny, grotesque, or both. In actuality, the technique wasn’t there. The glaze was patchy and the thickness of the mug walls looked uneven, but people tended to like gimmicky pieces like those. Still, they were cute, and Sarah was already planning on buying one for Les. She was afraid that the more fun mugs would win out over her own understated ones. On a whim, Sarah had made one with what looked like emerald crystals and shards piercing the handle. It was completely impractical and the ceramic crystals would definitely snap off the first time anyone accidentally hit it against something, but it was pretty. That mug was on display front and center.

“Your work is like… classic,” Kath argued. “It’s beautiful  _ and  _ it looks like something you can actually use.” She gestured subtly at a display of bowls full of holes. They were decorative, but completely impractical. 

“People don’t always look for function in competitions like this. It just depends on who the judges are and what they think is important.” 

“Well, they’d be crazy not to see how good yours are.”

“I read your blog post,” Sarah said, changing the subject. She didn’t like talking about herself all that much. “It was really good.”

“You think so? I feel like I went a bit heavy-handed.” 

“Nah. It was emotional, but good.” 

Kath smiled. “I hope so. You don’t really get to put a lot of emotion into pieces when you’re writing for a paper. It was a nice change of pace.”

“Did you get any pushback from the paper?” 

“Not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear from them. I don’t think they’ve found out yet.” 

“You used a pen name, though,” Sarah pointed out.

“I know. But some of the people there know me pretty well. We’ll see.”

They finished making the display. “Do you have to stick around for judging?” Kath asked. 

“No. It’s actually not going to be judged until Thursday. This is just for display. I was just going to call an Uber and head home.” 

Kath shook her head. “Don’t worry about that, I’ll give you a ride.” 

“You don’t need to do that. You’re working.”

“Sarah, I mean this with complete honesty: I want to leave. I can only handle so much time at the fair. Besides, I’m hungry and there’s literally nothing here that hasn’t been deep fried. Do you know what I had for breakfast?”

“No, what?” 

“A deep fried sausage on a stick, which they wrapped in a pancake, which they deep fried  _ again _ and then covered with powdered sugar.” 

Sarah nodded thoughtfully. “That actually sounds incredible.” 

“I mean, it was. But I can only handle so much. Let me give you a ride home. Give me an excuse to leave this hellhole.” 

“Okay, fine.” 

Kath helped Sarah out to the car and loaded the wheelchair, which folded, into the trunk. Her car was large, as were most of the cars in Bear Creek. Most people in the area tried to find vehicles with four wheel drive. As a town, they did not worry much about carbon footprints. “Am I taking you back to your house?” Kath asked. 

“No, my parents’. You’ll just take a left out of here and get on the highway. Then it’s the second right after the Publix.”

Kath took a left and started down the road that led toward the highway. Something had been on her mind after Race passed along a bit of gossip that he picked up from Spot. She had been meaning to ask Sarah about it at some point, but hadn’t been able to find a natural place in the conversation to bring it up. Running out of time, Kath decided to just go ahead and ask. “So, what’s up with your brother and Jack?”

“I’m not totally sure,” Sarah said. “Davey doesn’t really like talking about relationship stuff and feelings these days. He went through a really bad breakup a couple of months ago. But from what I’ve sort of pieced together, he and Jack are sort of dating? I mean, they went out once, and they’re going out again later this week.”

That was pretty much what Race had told Kath. She wanted to make sure that there wasn’t more to the story, but it didn’t sound like there was. From what Sarah said, it sounded like Jack was pursuing a perfectly normal relationship, with no funny business. He just wasn’t interested in her. 

“Can I tell you something?” Kath asked. “You can’t tell Davey.” 

“I love not telling Davey things. Shoot.” 

“I liked Jack for a while. I mean, it wasn’t a huge deal, or anything. Just a crush, you know.” 

Sarah sucked in a sharp intake of breath. “Shit. Are you okay?” 

“Yeah, it’s fine. I don’t even really know why I’m telling you. It’s just like… have you ever liked someone, but also felt like you never really wanted to date them?” 

“Taylor Swift.” 

“What?” 

“I have an inexplicable celebrity crush on Taylor Swift,” Sarah confessed. “But I wouldn’t want to be with her, even if she wasn’t a celebrity.” 

“I mean… I was talking more about real people–” 

“Taylor Swift is real.” 

“You know what I mean.” 

“Yeah, I do,” Sarah said. “I can’t say I’ve ever experienced that, but I guess I know what you mean.”

“I just can’t really see myself as Jack’s girlfriend. Even before he started flirting with Davey.”

“Do you know why not?” 

“I’m not sure. I think… I mean, we want different things, you know? But also, I’m more interested in girls, usually, and I guess I’ve just felt for a long time that even if I might date guys, I’ll end up with a woman.” 

“Are you gay?” Sarah asked. 

“Nah, just bi with a preference for women.” 

“Ah, I remember being ‘bi with a preference for women’,” Sarah said wistfully, then laughed. “I’m just kidding. That’s cool.”


	18. On a Date With Porgy and Bess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Davey takes Jack to the fair.

The fair was a lazy choice for a date. During the two weeks in the middle of October, every date in Bear Creek happened at the fair. Still, Davey really liked the fair, and he especially liked that on the first Wednesday, no one under the age of sixteen was allowed after eight PM. 

“I’ve never been to adult night,” Jack said. It was technically branded as ‘date night’, which made the plan even more lazy. 

“It’s the only time I come anymore,” Davey replied. “I hate running into my students in public.” 

“Does that happen a lot?”

“ _ Constantly _ . It’s bad enough going to the grocery store or something, but things like the fair on a normal night are basically impossible.” 

Davey paid for their entry and they were both given wristbands. “Okay, let’s make a game plan,” Jack said. His head looked like it was on a swivel as he rotated to make sure he got a full view of everything. “How do you feel about rides?” 

“The higher they go, the worse I feel about them,” Davey replied. “But some are fine.” 

“Good, me too. Games?” 

“They’re rigged, but fun.” 

“Food?” 

“A must,” Davey said. 

“Perfect. And I want to see the animals.” 

Davey glanced down at the map of the fair that they had been handed. “We should probably do that first. They get put away at nine.”

At night, the fair was beautiful, as long as you didn’t look at the ground. While crushed paper plates and cups littered the ground alongside mysterious patches of liquid, the lights cut through the dark, twinkling like red and green stars. Music wove through the crowds, blending with other songs to make a discordant, yet exciting blend. The air smelled like fried dough. 

The livestock area was housed in a massive barn near the open air market where the Bear Creek Market usually set up. Animals were grouped by species, with competitions for pigs, cows, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, and rabbits. As they walked down the rows, Jack kept kneeling to talk to animals and try to pet them through the fences. “Which are your favorites?” Davey asked. 

“Pigs,” Jack replied. “ _ God _ , I want a pig. They’re my favorite animal in– oh, my god. It’s Bess.” They had gotten to Larkin’s entries. Porgy and Bess were in enclosures right next to each other. Porgy was pink and dappled with black spots, while Bess was all black. They were both huge, but Bess was the larger of the two. “I love this pig.” 

“How, uh… how do you know each other?”

“I worked at Larkin’s for a while in high school. These two were born while I was there. Bess got really sick for a while and I helped take care of her.” Bess snorted through the fencing at Jack’s fingers. He ignored the signs warning visitors about biting animals and stuck his hand through the fence to pet her nose. Bess pushed her whole body against the fence, scratching an itch on her side. The fence bowed outward toward Jack and Davey and Jack scratched at her shoulder. “She’s so sweet. You like animals, right?” 

“Love them,” Davey said. 

After Jack took a long moment with Bess, they moved on. The cows were separated by variety, and Davey stopped to look at each one. “This one is my favorite,” he announced as they stopped in front of a brown Jersey. Her name, a sign said, was Rosie. 

“Why?” Jack had been commenting on how bony and weird cows were as they walked. 

“Look at her,” Davey said, gesturing to the cow. “Look at her eyes. No human can ever be that beautiful.” 

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Okay, so you’re into cows. I’ll make a note of that.” 

“Shut up. Look at her  _ eyelashes _ .” 

“If you were to make a fursona, assuming you haven’t already (I don’t know what you do in your spare time), what would it be?” 

Davey made a face. “A fursona?” 

“Yeah, it’s like–” 

“I teach middle school, Jack. I know what a fursona is.” 

“Would it be a cow?” 

“No.” 

“Why not?” 

“I’m nothing like a cow.” 

“You have beautiful eyes,” Jack said. 

“I–” Davey stumbled over his words. “Did you just bring up fursonas to hit on me?” 

“No, I’m just curious. It was just a happy coincidence.”

“Well, I don’t know what my fursona would be,” Davey said. “But it’s not a cow.” 

“We’ll figure it out. Mine would be a coyote.” 

After the animals, they went to play some games. Jack turned out to be extremely good at Skee-ball and won a plastic crown, which he forced Davey to wear. Davey won a fishing game but after they found out that the prize was an  _ actual _ fish, they decided to turn it down. (“I’m not ready to be a father,” Jack said.) 

They split a plate of nachos covered in pulled pork, followed by a funnel cake. Jack held the paper plate on his lap as they shared it, sitting side by side on a bench. A slight breeze passed over them, blowing powdered sugar all over Jack’s black jeans. “Shit,” he said. “I didn’t dress for funnel cake.” Davey passed him a few napkins, but Jack only managed to spread the powdered sugar around more. “Oh, well.”

“Sorry,” Davey said. “I should have held the plate.” 

“Then it would have just gotten onto you.” 

“Yes, but I’m not wearing black.” 

“Don’t worry about…” Jack trailed off, looking at something over Davey’s shoulder. “I know how you can make it up to me.” 

“How?” Davey asked warily. 

“Go on the ferris wheel with me.” Jack pointed at the ferris wheel, which towered over the fair. 

“I thought we agreed that we weren’t into high rides.”

“It’s only high half of the time,” Jack reasoned. “Come on, it’s classic date behavior. You can’t go on a fair date and  _ not _ go on the ferris wheel.”

“ _ You  _ said you’re afraid of heights.” 

“We won’t die. Come on.” 

Davey watched the ferris wheel stop for a moment. The higher cars swung a bit with the inertia. It was slow, and definitely not as big as a lot of ferris wheels that he had seen. The one at the state fair was gigantic. “Okay,” he finally said. 

He let Jack lead the way after their funnel cake was gone. There was a long line for the ferris wheel, since it was technically date night and, like Jack said, this was a date night staple. The line didn’t dampen Jack’s spirits, though, and he jumped right into line. An old couple was right in front of them, and Jack immediately engaged them in conversation. He had done that a lot during their date. Jack was the kind of person who could become instant friends with just about anyone. Davey couldn’t relate, and instead stood off to the side, only half paying attention to the conversation. 

“Yeah, this is Davey,” Jack was saying, and it tore Davey out of his reverie. “We’re on our second date. I  _ think _ it’s going well. Dave, is this going well?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Davey said. He immediately went on alert, watching for any signs of homophobia from the couple. Normally, Davey wasn’t so open about being on dates in public. He and Ben never even held hands outside of their homes.

“Michael took me to a drive-in movie for our second date,” the old woman said. She didn’t even seem to flinch at Jack admitting to being on a date with a man, and neither did her husband. 

“I thought that was the first date,” Michael said. 

“No, our first date was that picnic, remember?”

Oh, right. It’s been a long time.” 

The older couple was called up to take a seat in the ferris wheel, and Jack and Davey were suddenly at the front of the line. Davey passed a couple of tickets to the attendant, who looked incredibly bored. Jack was bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

When another car slid into position, a teenage couple got out, and the attendant opened the gate for Jack and Davey to get in. Once they were sitting on the bench, a metal bar was locked across their laps. The bench was smaller than it looked in the air, and the two of them had to squeeze together to fit. When the ferris wheel began to move again, the bench lurched. Jack jumped, which only made it swing more. “You good?” Davey asked. 

“Confession: I’ve never ridden one of these before,” Jack said. With the way they had to press against each other, Davey could feel how tense Jack was. 

“If you’re so afraid of heights, how do you go ziplining every day?” 

“I hate it. But also, I have specialized equipment and I inspect it every day for safety so if something bad happens, it’s my own damn fault.”

“Nothing bad’s going to happen,” Davey said. “We were in line for, what… twenty minutes? And it was totally fine.”

Jack didn’t respond. Davey glanced sideways at him and could see his jaw clenching. As they got past the halfway point, a gust of wind blew the bench and they began to sway again. It was only a slight movement, but Jack grabbed Davey’s hand. “Sorry,” he said, tense. “I can let go if you want. I know I’m being a baby.” 

Davey adjusted his hand slightly, but didn’t pull away. “No, it’s fine. Why don’t you talk about something else,” he suggested. Holding Jack’s hand was weird. Jack’s hands were about the same length as Davey’s, but while Davey’s hands were thin and bony, Jack’s were broad and strong. It was a bit chilly up in the air, but Jack was warm. It had been a long time since Davey had held hands with anyone new. Jack’s grip was slightly different than Ben’s had been, and his hands were larger. Davey knew that kissing someone new would be weird, but he had never considered how weird it would be to touch a new hand for the first time.

“Are you going to the lock-in?” Jack asked. He was staring straight ahead at the view, but his eyes were slightly squinted, like he was preparing to get hit in the face and wanted to protect himself. 

“No. I told you, I don’t like running into students, and I’m pretty sure almost all of my kids will be there.” 

“There are adult areas. You should go. Actually, you should go with me.” 

“Are you already trying to extend the trial period?” Davey asked. 

“Yeah, I am.” Jack squeezed Davey’s hand. “We haven’t found your fursona yet, so we can’t give up yet. Besides, the lock-in is fun.” 

“I can’t stay up all night.”

“I’ll help you. Come on. Go with me.”

The ferris wheel pulled to a stop again, and they were at the apex of the ride. During the daytime, they would probably be able to see the mountains and farms in the surrounding areas. As it was, they could see the lights of the fair, the highway outside, and the Food Lion parking lot nearby. The moon was high and nearly perfectly half full. There was a charged tension between them. Media told them what they were supposed to do at the top of the ferris wheel. It would be so easy for Davey to turn his head. He would only have to lean in a couple of inches, and he would be kissing Jack. It wouldn’t be their first kiss, but it would be the first one that, in Davey’s mind, really counted. 

He didn’t lean in, though. They were both on edge, and the timing wasn’t right. Davey didn’t want to kiss Jack just because movies told him that that’s what you do at the top of a ferris wheel. He adjusted his grip on Jack’s hand. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go.”


End file.
